Nebraska License Plate County Codes
Aside from states like Tennessee, Georgia, and others that actually list the registrant's county on the license plate, Nebraska makes it almost as easy to figure out where someone is from, just by looking at their license plate. In 1922 Nebraska instituted a 1- or 2-digit county code on license plates for passenger vehicles. So if Nebraska 66-**** cuts you off on the highway, you know to look for him at home in Cherry County, NE. Unfortunately for you, Cherry County is the largest county in the state, and is bigger than Connecticut.
There are a few counties that no longer use the county code system. Not coincidentally, they are the state's three most populous counties: Douglas, Sarpy and Lancaster. Dakota county had discussed discontinuing use of the county code as well, but in the end they opted to keep county code 70 on their plates.
If you'd like a list of all of the Nebraska county codes, Wikipedia has one here.
Other States With County Codes
County codes are more common than I had originally thought! Not all of them are as obvious as Nebraska's though... I first noticed this because 1 or 2 digits at the beginning of a license plate has to be a code for something, right? Here's a breakdown of the county codes I've encountered while writing this blog:
- Some states use the same 1- or 2- digit code system that Nebraska does. They are: Alabama, Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
- Idaho has a cool system: the first letter of the county, with a number in front of it to differentiate it from other counties that begin with the same letter. If the county is the only one that begins with that letter, the code is the letter by itself. For example: 1A is Ada county 2A is Adams county and E is Elmore county.
- Indiana's county coding system is complicated. Not as bad as New York, but too much for me to get into in this brief blog!
- Kansas' county codes are "two letters based on the first letter of and another letter in the name of the county", according to Wikipedia.
- Mississippi has county codes that match up phonetically to the county name (in many cases, anyway). But who cares?! Their plates have the county name on the bottom!
- New Jersey only does county coding on "courtesy" plates, which are given to those with political connections.
- New York has the most complicated county coding system. It started in 1973 with each county having a designated letter block. Just look at this cross-reference on Wikipedia. So much to remember!!
- Ohio has a different way of going about it. They have county codes on a sticker in the lower left corner of the plate, with the county name in small text below the code number.
Carhenge
At the beginning of this post I mentioned that I had a new inspiration for finally finishing this post. That inspiration is CARHENGE! This past weekend I visited Carhenge, which is a replica of Stone Henge... made of cars.
Carhenge itself is pretty cool, but inside the souvenir shop is a license plate collection. There are plates from almost every US state, and Canadian province and territory. Of course since Carhenge is in Nebraska, there is a huge collection of Nebraska license plates from over the years. Awesome!
If you're nowhere near Nebraska but would still like to see samples of license plates, WorldLicensePlates is a great source [and not just for Nebraska!].
