How are the letters arranged on Jiangsu license plates?
2 Answers
Jiangsu license plate letter arrangement is primarily based on the chronological order of city or provincial-level city establishment, as follows: 1. The first character is a Chinese character representing the provincial-level administrative region where the vehicle owner resides, which is the abbreviation of provinces, municipalities directly under the central government, or autonomous regions. For example, Jiangsu is abbreviated as 'Su'. 2. The second character of the license plate is an English letter representing the prefecture-level administrative region where the vehicle owner resides, serving as the letter code for prefecture-level cities, regions, autonomous prefectures, or leagues. This is generally determined by the vehicle management office based on the rankings of prefecture-level administrative regions assigned by the provincial vehicle management office. For example, 'Su A' represents Nanjing City, and 'Su B' represents Wuxi City.
Right after I got my driver's license, I was particularly fascinated by the letter arrangement on license plates, especially those from Jiangsu, since that's my hometown. The license plate always starts with 'Su' representing Jiangsu, followed by a letter indicating the city—for example, SuA is Nanjing, SuB is Wuxi, SuC is Xuzhou, and so on down to SuN for Suqian. Basically, these letters are assigned in alphabetical order, making them simple and easy to remember, with A to N corresponding to the 13 prefecture-level cities in the province. I recall it starts with the provincial capital Nanjing, while other cities are arranged by location or historical significance. When selecting a license plate, the letter affects the identification of the vehicle's registration location, so if you plan to buy a car or transfer ownership, remember to check the corresponding code to avoid mistakes. On the road, seeing plates from different cities allows you to quickly identify the origin of a vehicle, which is quite useful for judging traffic conditions. Additionally, compared to other provinces, Zhejiang uses 'ZheA' as the starting prefix, following a similar logic, as this design is standardized nationwide.
