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Your return got approved. Then the seller’s address arrives:
收件人：售后部
电话：138 0000 0000
浙江省杭州市余杭区五常街道青禾路88号星河花园3幢2单元1502室
邮编：310023
Meanwhile, your shipping form wants a street, a city, a state, and a postal code, all in English letters. The message gives you a road, a word that looks like street but isn’t, a garden, and three numbers with characters wedged between them.
The province, city, district, and subdistrict are real. The road, compound, building, and phone number are made up, so please don’t mail anything here. Once you know the order, it takes about a minute to sort out.
What Is the Chinese Address Format?
A Chinese address usually runs from the biggest place to the smallest: province, city, district, subdistrict, road, compound, building, and room. On an English shipping label, the recipient and the most specific parts of the address generally come first. So the Chinese line reads like a map app zooming in, and your English form wants it zoomed back out.
The same big-to-small habit shows up all over Chinese paperwork. Dates run year, month, day (年月日, nián yuè rì), and names put the family name before the given name. Start with the biggest group, narrow down to one person or one door, and a lot of Chinese forms stop looking backwards.
Here’s the seller’s address taken apart:
| In the message | What it is | Where it goes on your form |
|---|---|---|
| 售后部 (shòuhòu bù) | After-sales department | Recipient |
| 浙江省 (Zhèjiāng Shěng) | Zhejiang Province | State or province |
| 杭州市 (Hángzhōu Shì) | Hangzhou | City |
| 余杭区 (Yúháng Qū) | Yuhang District | District, or an address line |
| 五常街道 (Wǔcháng Jiēdào) | Wuchang Subdistrict | An address line |
| 青禾路88号 (Qīnghé Lù bāshí bā hào) | No. 88 Qinghe Road | Address line 1 |
| 星河花园 (Xīnghé Huāyuán) | Xinghe Garden, a residential compound | An address line |
| 3幢2单元1502室 (sān zhuàng èr dānyuán yī wǔ líng èr shì) | Building 3, entrance 2, room 1502 | An address line |
| 邮编 (yóubiān) 310023 | Six-digit postal code | Postal code |
| 电话 (diànhuà) | Recipient’s phone number | Phone |
| Not written in the seller’s message | China | Country |
One trap first: jiedao (街道) looks like it must be a street, since jie (街) can mean street and dao (道) can mean road. In an address, it’s a subdistrict, an area within the district. So Wuchang jiedao is Wuchang Subdistrict, and the actual road is Qinghe Lu (青禾路).
No district box on your form? Tuck Yuhang District (余杭区) into an address line. Only two address lines? Squeeze everything in. A courier would much rather read one long line than guess at a missing piece.
How to Read Building, Entrance, and Room Numbers
Many apartment addresses lead to a residential compound (小区, xiǎoqū). Once you reach the compound, you still need to find the right building, entrance, and room:
- 3幢 (sān zhuàng) is building 3. You may also see 3号楼 (sān hào lóu) or 3栋 (sān dòng).
- 2单元 (èr dānyuán) is entrance 2.
- 1502室 (yī wǔ líng èr shì) is room 1502.
The easy one to misread is danyuan (单元). In English, a unit is often an apartment. Here it’s a section of the building with its own door, stairs, and elevator, so Apt 2 sends the courier to the right tower but the wrong stairwell.
On your form, spell it out as Building 3, Entrance 2, Room 1502.
Room numbers usually carry the floor, so 1502 is typically room 02 on the 15th floor.
Note: Some buildings skip 4 in their floor labels because four (四, sì) sounds close to death (死, sǐ). So the elevator buttons and the room number don’t always agree. The same sound-alike logic runs through most Chinese lucky numbers, and if you’d like to say 1502 out loud, start with Chinese numbers.
What Does Shouhou Mean on a Return Address?
Shouhou bu (售后部) means the after-sales department, the team that handles returns and repairs. It’s one of the most useful shopping words in China. When an order goes wrong, the go-to line is zhao shouhou (找售后), go find after-sales.
On a return label, copy the recipient line exactly as the seller wrote it, whether it names a department, a company, or a person.
If it names a person, their family name may appear first. Here’s where the same name sits in three common formats:
| Where the name appears | Example |
|---|---|
| Seller’s message | 收件人：张伟 (Recipient: Zhang Wei) 地址：浙江省……1502室 (Address: Zhejiang Province … Room 1502) |
| Handwritten Chinese envelope | 浙江省……1502室 (Delivery address) 张伟 收 (To Zhang Wei) |
| International shipping label | ZHANG Wei (Recipient, first line) Room 1502, Entrance 2, Building 3 … CHINA |
If the family-name-first order looks unfamiliar, here’s how Chinese names work.
Urban vs Rural Chinese Addresses
A rural address may have no compound or apartment tower. After the province and city, you might see a county (县, xiàn), a town (镇, zhèn) or township (乡, xiāng), and a village (村, cūn). Some add a village group (组, zǔ) and a house number. The zoom works the same way. It just ends at a farmhouse instead of the 15th floor.
How to Write a Chinese Address for Shipping
With the address decoded, the label is the easy part: keep the Chinese address, the phone number, and the seller’s postal code, and put CHINA on the last line. Those small checks decide whether the package sails through or sits in a depot.
Keep the Chinese address. If your shipping form accepts Chinese characters, use the address the seller sent. The courier in China reads Chinese first. If your form takes only English letters, get the seller’s version in letters, and check whether your carrier lets you tape the Chinese address beside the printed label.
Keep the phone number. Couriers in China often call or text before delivery, and many international forms ask for it too. Depending on the building, the package may go to the door, the gatehouse, a Hive Box (丰巢, Fēngcháo) locker, or a pickup station.
Use the seller’s postal code. Mainland Chinese postal codes have six digits. One city can have dozens of them, so guessing from the city name is a gamble. If the seller has to look theirs up, that’s normal, since domestic couriers rarely ask for it.
Put CHINA on the last line of an international label. Even on an all-Chinese label, your own post office needs to know which country it’s heading to.
Missing a detail? You can send the seller this message and ask them to fill in each field:
您好，我要从国外寄回商品。寄件表格需要分项填写，请按下面的项目提供退货信息。没有的项目请写“无”，最后再发一次完整中文地址，方便我核对。
I’m returning an item from overseas. My shipping form has separate fields. Please fill in the details below. If a field doesn’t apply, write 无 (wú, none), and paste the full Chinese address again at the end so I can check it.
- 收件人（姓名或公司、部门） / Recipient (person, company, or department):
- 联系电话 / Recipient’s phone number:
- 省或直辖市 / Province or municipality:
- 城市 / City:
- 区或县 / District or county:
- 街道或乡镇 / Subdistrict or township:
- 路名和门牌号 / Road name and street number:
- 小区或园区名称 / Residential compound or business park:
- 楼栋、单元和房号 / Building, entrance, and room:
- 邮编 / Postal code:
- 完整中文退货地址（一整行） / Full return address in Chinese (one line):
- 英文或拼音地址 / Address for an English-only shipping form (pinyin is fine):
Deliveries in China can crawl around Spring Festival and the October National Day break, so if your return has a deadline, check the Chinese holidays calendar before you ship.
How to Write a Chinese Address in English
To write a Chinese address in English, flip the order and keep the place names in pinyin. Words like road, district, and building can be translated, so 青禾路 becomes Qinghe Road, never Green Grain Road.
Put the recipient first and work outward from the room to the city and province. The sample address comes out like this:
After-Sales Department
Room 1502, Entrance 2, Building 3, Xinghe Garden
No. 88 Qinghe Road, Wuchang Subdistrict, Yuhang District
310023 HANGZHOU, ZHEJIANG
CHINA
If your form has separate boxes for the city, province, and postal code, those last lines go into their own boxes.
How to Use a Chinese Address in a Map App or Taxi
Paste the full Chinese address into your map app or DiDi, or show it to the driver, then check the district, so you land at the right branch and the right door.
Say you’re meeting a friend at Shanghai Museum East. A search for Shanghai Museum brings up two locations, but your friend’s message gives you the clue you need: 上海市浦东新区世纪大道1952号. That’s the East museum in Pudong. The museum on People’s Square has a different address: 上海市黄浦区人民大道201号.
The giveaway is 东 (dōng, east) in Pudong New Area (浦东新区, Pǔdōng Xīnqū), the side of the city east of the Huangpu River. Check for it in the map result before you set off, then check the entrance. At Shanghai Museum East, individual visitors enter through the B1 East Gate near Dingxiang Road (丁香路); reserved groups use the 1F North Gate near Century Avenue (世纪大道). In a taxi, name the gate too.
This happens all the time in China. Museums, hospitals, hotel chains, and malls love a second branch, and the district is the fastest way to tell them apart. Hotels add one more twist: the English name on your booking may not match the Chinese name drivers know. Ask the front desk for the Chinese address and screenshot it before you head out.
One last catch: an address can find the place without finding the visitor entrance. The Palace Museum lists 4 Jingshan Qianjie, on its north side, as its address. But visitors enter through the Meridian Gate (午门, Wǔmén) on the south side; the north and east gates are exits. Drop a pin on the mailing address, and you can end up at the wrong end of a very large palace.
Label printed or route saved? If this saved you some guesswork, pass it on. The Stellar Chinese newsletter covers the rest: language, culture, everyday life, trends, and business in modern China.