Meaning of dash in house address number in USA?

In my experience, it usually means what you think it means: a range of address numbers. I've also seen it used as a way of writing an apartment or suite number, so 136-39 37 AVE would be 136 37th Ave, Apt. 39, and 1221-102 CANYON ROCK CT would be 1221 Canyon Rock Ct, Apt. 102. It's not a very good way to denote an apartment/room/suite number but I've seen it used occasionally.


Some localities use a grid-based addressing scheme, for example Fair Lawn, NJ:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Lawn,_New_Jersey#Grid-based_address_system

Fair Lawn uses a street address numbering system in which most Fair Lawn addresses are given hyphenated numbers, such as 10-13 Some Street.

The first numbers (before the dash) correspond to block-distances from Broadway (on streets that run North-South) and to the numbered streets in the borough (example: 2nd Street, 17th Street, etc.) on the streets that run East-West; with the highest numbers being in the low 40s, and the lowest numbers being 0-30, etc. Addresses south of Broadway / Route 4 start with a zero and a hyphen, which can cause confusion with those unfamiliar with the grid system. Most GPS systems and online address entry forms do not accept the dash, though addresses entered without the dash are typically handled properly.


They use the dash system in Hawaii. I am not 100% positive, but I am pretty sure their use is the [city]-[location] [street]. Here are the addresses of the post office in 3 neighboring cities:

54-316 Kamehameha Hwy, Hauula, HI 96717
55-510 Kamehameha Hwy, Laie, HI 96762
56-565 Kamehameha Hwy, Kahuku, HI 96731

All of the house addresses in the corresponding cities start with the 54- or 55- etc. regardless of which street you are on.