Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020 |

# Random question Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea
mrpenney 18:59 UTC 16 Oct 2010 | Why is the postal abbreviation for the Northern Marianas "MP"? I mean, I get that most of the logical alternatives--NM, MI, MA--were already taken. But that just begs the question. What does the P stand for? --M. |
wksamoa 03:25 UTC 17 Oct 2010 | Michael A.White, LLC, a lawyer at Saipan, states on his website: http://www.freewebs.com/whitelawoffice/index.htm "A lot of people ask me what our postal code, "MP", stands for. When we were part of the former Trust Territory, our postal code was "TT", which made a lot of sense. When we became a US Commonwealth, the USPS gave us "CM", for Commonwealth of the Marianas. And then, for some reason, they decided that wasn't good enough, and wanted to change it. We asked them for "MA", which stands for "MAriana Islands", but that was taken. So we asked for "MI", again for "Mariana Islands", but the people in Michigan didn't want to give that up. So the USPS gave us "MP"; they never told us what it meant, but I figure it must stand for "Middle of the Pacific". " Not bad. | 1
5waldos 21:28 UTC 18 Oct 2010 | Sounds right to me. | 2
ozziegiraffe 11:41 UTC 19 Oct 2010 | Sounds a bit like Solomon Islands being SB for British Solomons, even though it happened years after they stopped being British. | 3
wksamoa 18:34 UTC 19 Oct 2010 | Or WS for Western Samoa, even though the Western was taken off the country's name in 1997. | 4
drenthe 04:26 UTC 07 Dec 2010 | MP is the abbreviation for "Marianas Protectorate". As it is now a Protectorate of the USA. | 5