State Alpha Code:  Alpha

State Alpha Code: AA, where each A represents a letter from A through Z. 

State Alpha Code:  STATEABBR

An electronic copy of the values to be used  for the individual island territories (which form the aggregate entity U.S. Minor Outlying Islands) is also available here in ASCII (.txt) format. This file should be used only when an individual territory must be uniquely identified, and a field for the FIPS County Code is not available to be used in combination with the FIPS State Code for U.S. Minor Outlying Islands (74 or UM).  

A self-extracting ZIP file (states_rev1.exe, 107 kb) is available here for download. This file contains the two ASCII .txt files described above, as well as electronic copies of these values in Access (.mdb) format. To access the contents of the self-extracting ZIP file, download the file and double-click on the file to run the self extractor. Specify the location where you want the files stored (e.g., C:\Temp), and click Unzip to extract and unzip the files. Some browsers may require the user to right-click on the hyperlink text with the mouse, left-click on "Select Target As" or "Save Link As" from the dialog box menu, and save the zipped file to the appropriate user directory. 

Related information is also available. For electronic copies of codes for named populated places, primary county divisions (such as townships and census county divisions), American Indian and Alaska Native areas, and several kinds of facilities, visit the Federal Information Processing Standards Publication 55-3, 1994 December 28, "Codes for Named Populated Places, Primary County Divisions, and Other Locational Entities of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Outlying Areas." Flat ASCII files, zip files, tar files, and text files of the FIPS 55 codes for the 50 States, Washington, D.C., and nine outlying areas are available for download or printing from this site. 

Important Notice:  On February 8, 2005, the NIST announced the withdrawal of 17 FIPS Publications in Federal Register, Volume 70, No. 25 (70 FR 6623) , including FIPS 55-3, Codes for Named Populated Places, Primary County Divisions, and Other Locational Entities of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Outlying Areas. These FIPS are being withdrawn because they are obsolete, or have not been updated to adopt current voluntary industry standards, current federal data standards, or current good practices for information security.  Work is underway to redesign or transform several of the withdrawn FIPS standards for review and acceptance as ANSI-accredited standards, but it will be a lengthy process.

The existing FIPS 55 guideline is being redesigned by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to use the feature identifier (ID) codes from the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), which never change. The GNIS is the Nation's official geographic names repository and has been designated by the U.S. Board of Geographic Names as the only source of geographic names and locative attributes for use by the Federal Government and its contractors. This new proposed standard will be submitted for approval and accreditation by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Refer to the FIPS 55 PUBLICATION CHANGE NOTICE, effective January 1, 2006, for USGS contact information and details on the proposed standard.

The initial data standard and source data is available here:  State Name and Alpha Code

Part 270, FW 6, Data Management and Standards, dated September 30, 2002.

Federal Information Processing Standards Publication 5-2, 1987 May 28, Codes for the Identification of the States, the District of Columbia and the Outlying Areas of the United States, and Associated Areas.

FIPS 55 PUBLICATION CHANGE NOTICE, effective January 1, 2006.

To ensure compliance with the Service Information and Technology Architecture (SITA), Service staff are strongly encouraged to utilize this data element in existing systems, data sets, databases, and information applications. Where existing systems and data-related items are not in compliance, they should be modified to achieve compatibility and implement this data standard.

Full State names and their corresponding two-letter alphabetic codes will be handled as separate data fields in any new or modified automated system, and will not be combined in a single data field. 

The U.S. Postal Official Abbreviations for States and U.S. Possessions are identical to the two-letter State alpha codes listed in FIPS PUB 5.2, Table 1, "FIPS State Codes for the States and the District of Columbia," and Table 2, "FIPS State Codes for the Outlying Areas of the United States, the Freely Associated States, and Trust Territory," with the exception of the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands. Mail for these islands is routed indirectly.