Field guide
What Is Address Line 1?
Address Line 1 is the main delivery address line. It normally contains the house number, building number, street name, and street type.
Examples
- 1250 Main St
- 45 Collins Street
- 10 Anson Road
- Friedrichstrasse 82
What usually belongs somewhere else
Apartment, suite, unit, room, floor, department, and building details often belong in Address Line 2 or a separate secondary-address field. Some countries combine these details into one line, so forms should stay flexible.
QA notes
Test long street names, short street names, numeric street names, non-English characters, and records where Address Line 2 is empty. Do not reject valid addresses only because Address Line 1 has a different order from U.S. examples.
Country-aware examples
| Country | Address Line 1 example | Why a generic parser can fail |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 1250 Main St | House number usually appears first |
| Germany | Friedrichstrasse 82 | House number commonly follows street |
| Japan | 丸の内1丁目2-3 | Block identifiers and local script do not use a Western street model |
| Singapore | 10 Anson Road | Unit information may include a separate #12-05 value |
Acceptance criteria for a form
- Store the line as text without extracting or recalculating numbers.
- Support Unicode, spaces, hyphens, apostrophes, and locally meaningful punctuation.
- Document a maximum length and report overflow before submission.
- Keep Address Line 2 optional unless a specific business process requires it.
- Preserve the original value through edit, API, and export workflows.
Address Line 1 is a product-interface label, not a universal postal standard. The selected country should determine labels, ordering, and validation.
Round-trip test for a main address line
Use one value that contains a house-number suffix, local punctuation, or non-ASCII text. Submit it through the form, inspect the API payload, reload the saved address, and export it. Compare the exact source string at each boundary rather than comparing only what is visible on screen.
| Test value | Expected result | Failure signal |
|---|---|---|
| Waldstraße 7a | Street and alphanumeric house number remain intact. | The suffix is rejected or ß is replaced irreversibly. |
| 12-14 King Street | The number range remains part of the line. | A parser treats the hyphen as an invalid character. |
| 丸の内1丁目2-3 | The Japanese source value is stored unchanged. | The form demands a Western street name and number. |
| PO Box 248 | The delivery service is accepted when the workflow allows it. | A street-only rule blocks all non-street addresses. |
Parsing Address Line 1 into components can support search or validation, but the original user-entered value should remain available. Parsed components are an interpretation and may not be reversible across every country.