I live in the city of Antwerp. Antwerp is the capital of the province of Antwerp, Belgium.
What I would like to have displayed under my name on my résumé:
Antwerp, Belgium
Second best choice (redundant, but technically correct):
Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
If you really, really insist that there should be a province/state code, then let me enter:
Antwerp, ANT, Belgium
What is currently displayed:
Antwerp, VAN, Belgium
It doesn't matter if I leave the state/province field blank or if I fill in another value, the VAN
value always pops back up.
After some searching I gather that the VAN
value that you are using is the ISO 3166-2 code for the names of the principal subdivisions, but I have never before seen someone in Belgium use that, and certainly not on a résumé.
The V
in VAN
comes from our very peculiar state structure: Belgium is divided into three regions, two of them are subdivided into five provinces each. (The Brussels-Capital Region does not belong to any province, nor does it contain any.) The province of Antwerp is part of the Flemish Region (Dutch: Vlaamse Gewest, hence the V
). Things like ISO standards have to be pendantic about these matters, but in normal usage you never make this further subdivision.
You make a site for an international audience, so don't automatically assume that what is customary in the USA is also true in the rest of the world. At least give me the option to override/localize settings.
(What makes it extra confusing is that Van
is a regular Dutch word and often part of the last name of a person, like in my case)