Where is Hyattsville? It seems like a simple question, but it turns out that there are conflicting answers — and a long-ago decision can explain why.
If you started at Franklins in downtown Hyattsville and drove up Route 1, you’ll be in Riverdale Park.
Keep driving north, turn onto East-West Highway and keep heading east past the Baltimore-Washington Parkway for 15 minutes into Lanham and your GPS may tell you that you’re back in Hyattsville.
In reality, you aren’t. But the U.S. Postal Service considers a number of addresses in the area to be Hyattsville — one reason why stories in the Washington Post and elsewhere will refer to places nowhere near Hyattsville by that name.
As College Park geography student D.W. Rowlands recently explained, the confusion started in 1953, when residents of the area around Lanham incorporated as a city they called Carrollton, a Maryland resident who signed the Declaration of Independence.
The problem? There were already another community in Carroll County called Carrollton.
To avoid sending mail to the wrong place, the Postal Service required mail for the Prince George’s County Carrollton be addressed to Hyattsville. Even after residents voted in 1966 to change the name to New Carrollton, the practice persisted, creating two Hyattsvilles:
The western of these two regions that the Post Office considers Hyattsville contains the City of Hyattsville and unincorporated areas to its west and north. The eastern one, though, contains none of Hyattsville, and is made up of two ZIP codes (20784 and 20785) that include the incorporated municipalities of Landover Hills and Cheverly and New Carrollton.
Is there a similar reason that, in some systems, addresses in Cheverly say Hyattsville? For example, Cheverly doesn’t even exist for Washington Gas – only Hyattsville. Maybe that has something to do with zip codes?
I hear ya, Steve! I live in ZIP Code 20783, and my postal address is Adelphi. But sometimes people tell me they have trouble sending me packages, and I tell them to try using Hyattsville in the address instead. Also, the weather app on my phone sometimes tells me I’m in Hyattsville, but If I move my phone a foot or so, it tells me I’m in Adelphi. This is truly a crazy, mixed-up place!
Why are they calling the area around Sharieff Rd which use ti be Landover, now called Hyattsville Maryland
I live in Hyattsville but I also get mail addressed to me in Chillum ?
That explains New Carrollton but doesn’t explain ten others towns that show up online as Hyattsville. Is Chillum and Landover in Hyattsville or not?
Well I am in Hyattsville 20783 zip code. When my Mom and Dad bought the home I live in the area was called Chillim. Then by 1968 or so the area wa renamed West Hyattsville. Now today the area is Hyattsville!
I’ve kinda figured thstwhat was possibly why I haven’t recieved alot of my packages I would be emailed by sellers saying my address is not recognizable in the system so when moved and signed my lease the address was 53 85th ave. New Carrollton MD.20784 and I also realized that I still can recieve Mai by using Hyattsville Md. as well as Lanham MD. Too it’s all the same!??
??
I forgot to mention this is similar what happened in the Branch Ave.and Suitland MD. area Temple Hills MD. Branch ave 20745 – 20747 etc it’s all divided up using either you still should receive your mail regardless however nowadays all that’s going on with the UPS System and the president we lucky that we are getting our mail most of my mail has been going to out of state addresses or haven’t been recieved stuck in God knows where $ down the drain SMH!
I live in Cheverly, I think.
I have had many pizza deliveries delayed because they first went to an exact same street addtress near ML King Jr. Hwy. Then there are the “lost” contractors…. Nice to know of this history though.
My office is in Landover and they still say Hyattsville when I put in the address.