MA is Massachusetts. It is the USPS two-letter code for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where Boston serves as both capital and largest city.
Why the code is MA
The 1963 standardization had one absolute requirement: fifty codes, two characters each, no duplicates. Eight state names start with M, and that constraint is what bent most of them out of shape.
Three of the eight begin with the letters M and A: Maine, Maryland and Massachusetts. Only Massachusetts came out with the plain first-two-letters code. Maine and Maryland were not given near-misses, they were given a completely different construction, first letter plus last letter. MainE produced ME and MarylanD produced MD. That is why neither code resembles the sound of its state name, and why people who learn the first-two-letters rule get both of them wrong.
Massachusetts could not have used that construction anyway. The name ends in S, so first-and-last would have produced MS, and MS is Mississippi. The awkwardness of ME and MD is the direct cost of keeping MA clean.
Before the two-letter era the state was printed as Mass., a form that survived in datelines, case citations and postal directories for well over a century. It remains the version crossword setters reach for.
Codes people confuse with MA
| Code | State | Why the mix-up happens |
|---|---|---|
| ME | Maine | Same M-A opening in the state name, but the code is built from the first and last letters. Nothing in ME hints at where the E came from, so it is remembered by rote or not at all. |
| MD | Maryland | The third M-A state, and the only state code that doubles as a common professional title. Forms that mix addresses with credentials get MD wrong in both directions. |
| MS | Mississippi | The code Massachusetts would have carried under the first-and-last rule. Anyone reasoning from the ending of the name lands here. |
| MI | Michigan | Both MA and MI are straight first-two-letters codes, so knowing the rule does not separate them. The state has to be recalled directly. |
| NE | Nebraska | The NFL team that plays in Massachusetts is abbreviated NE, for New England. NE is Nebraska's postal code, so a Foxborough box score and a Lincoln mailing label share two letters. |
Quick facts about Massachusetts
- Capital: Boston
- Largest city: Boston, one of the minority of states where capital and largest city are the same place
- Region: Northeast, in New England
- Statehood: February 6, 1788, the 6th state to ratify the Constitution, and one of the original thirteen colonies
- Population band: 5 to 10 million
- Land area: 44th of 50, making it the seventh smallest state
- Time zone: Eastern
Where you will see MA
Mail. Massachusetts holds the lowest ZIP codes in the United States. The national numbering opens at 01001 in Agawam and the state fills the 010 to 027 range, with Boston in 021 and 022. If a spreadsheet has stripped the leading zero from a five-digit ZIP, the record is almost certainly a Massachusetts one.
License plates. Standard Massachusetts plates spell the state name out and carry the slogan The Spirit of America. The two-letter code lives on the registration and title paperwork rather than the plate itself.
Sports. Boston's three downtown franchises all shorten to BOS. The Patriots use NE. Between them, the state's own code turns up less often on a scoreboard than in a shipping database.
Crosswords. Clues for the Bay State want MASS, four letters, rather than the postal pair.
Forms and databases. MA is the ISO country code for Morocco and the standard shorthand for a Master of Arts. A bare MA in an unlabeled field is ambiguous three ways, which is a real cause of misrouted mail and mismatched records.
Fix the M block for good
MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT. Eight codes, one letter in common. Statedoku makes you place them side by side.
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