GUWonder

For starters in Europe, consider Sweden and how it handles births there and/or how it issues documents to persons born in places now or before under Swedish rule. [The local parish area -- yes, church parish -- that covers the area of the family's residence is what has been listed as place of birth in Sweden; and it has slipped into other countries' documents too.]

Competent, informed US embassy/consulate staff accepting applications of FS-240 for US citizens born abroad ought to be aware of these practices. Often, but not always, they are; other USG and other government personnel are too often another story.

chrismo2

Yep, exactly the same in Denmark. There is no official place of birth, but only an official place of registration of birth. This is the only place that is written in your passport and other official documents. This place is identical to the parish where your mother had her official residence at the time of your birth. So even though your mother travel 100 miles to give birth, you will still have your mother's residence parish as place of birth registration. And BTW, the birth actually has to be registered in that parish, so it is a correct statement.

GUWonder

Place of birth registration vs actual place of birth. The actual place of birth in Scandinavia is often not acknowledged on Scandinavian government documents as the actual place of birth of an individual. However all current Scandinavian ordinary passports for Scandinavian citizens include a field for place of birth.

The parental parish area is not necessarily where a person's birth took place and thus the passport listing (with registered parish of a parent as place of birth) is a technically incorrect place of birth for a huge proportion of the Scandinavian population born in a hospital which is physically located in parish area X that is distinct from the parish area Y that geographically covers the registered domicile of a parent. Most all such children born in a hospital providing birthing services to mothers with a government-registered address located in a parish that is different than the one within which the hospital is located have a technically incorrect place of birth listed on their passports. This rather messed up situation is the product of one hand of government switching to a certain kind of standardized document format while another hand of government remains tied to certain old ways of doing things without appreciating and acknowledging that inconsistency between an old control system and a new control system put people in a pickle of a situation.

The interesting angle here is that including a false place of birth on US documents/declarations -- including for purposes of foreigner's admission to the US (as visitor or as resident) or foreigner's adjustment of immigration status or naturalization as a US citizen -- may be used to revoke administratively-granted US status even decades later or to otherwise prosecute.

This all brings up an increasingly common situation. Parent registered as living in one Scandinavian country but giving birth in another Scandinavian country. It wasn't too long ago that Sweden-residing Danish women were sent to give birth in Danish facilities because the nearest Swedish hospitals and other birthing centers able to accommodate at a necesssary time were much more distant than Danish facilities. Are such children's Danish passports listing place of birth as "abroad", "Sweden" or some Danish parish of say a grandparent that lives in a parish area that is not even the parish area encompassing the area surrounding the actual place of birth?

How this mess with passports would be far different if not for trying to standardize to "international" "standards" of recent decades. [The mess also exists in the US where the government standardized passports to a way that was inconsistent with what was done by the federal government previously in relation to names.]

NA-Flyer

Switzerland places the CANTON name as the place of birth (place of origin) even if someone is not born there.

Karelia

This is an on-going issue that remains unresolved.(either legally or politically) In fact, The United States Supreme Court has decided to rule on this issue during its next session. According to the NY Times, a decision will likely be handed down by early 2015.

Airbridge

An Irish passport shows your place of birth to be the County you were born in

ubernostrum

The issue in that case is not the citizenship. Background for people wandering by:

The case involves a boy who was born in Jerusalem, and who -- because of his parents -- is a US citizen by birth (remember that being born in the US is sufficient for being a citizen at birth, but so is being born abroad to US citizen parents). The parents applied to have his passport list his place of birth as "Jerusalem, Israel".

The policy of the State Department is to refuse such requests, since listing that could be interpreted as the United States formally recognizing sovereignty over Jerusalem, which is an extremely thorny diplomatic issue they don't want to provoke.

Congress, however, passed a law in 2002 to try to overturn this policy, and require the State Department, on request, to list "Jerusalem, Israel". President (George W.) Bush signed that into law, but stated that his administration would interpret that section as advisory on separation-of-powers grounds (arguing that Article II, section 2, clause 4 of the Constitution gives the President the exclusive power to recognize or not recognize foreign sovereignty).

The actual dispute in the case, then, is whether Congress can pass a law overriding the President/executive branch on recognizing foreign sovereignty.

Randyk47

Mine too. Of course lucky me but a few years ago I fly into Dallas from Frankfurt, GE where I was working for the US Army and I get a Customs and Immigration guy who wants to play smart aleck with me. He asked what state was I born in and I wasn't quick enough to realize he was messing with me so I replied Washington, DC. He immediately launched off on a mini-lecture about the fact Washington, DC wasn't a state. Fine, whatever.....I was tired after a 10-11 hour flight in coach and was in no mood to play trivia with him.

BigFlyer

In fact, if you look at the list of US Missions around the world, the Jerusalem consulate is the only one listed under the city, not the country: http://www.usembassy.gov/mena.html

Speaking of that list - I always get a laugh when I think of how the communist government in Calcutta changed the name of the street that the US consulate is on to Ho Chi Minh Sarani during the Viet Nam war: http://kolkata.usconsulate.gov/contact_information.html

When I visited the consulate in the 70's, the consulate was using the address of the street in the back, Shakespeare Sarani, as its official address. Now that the US has relations with Viet Nam, the consulate uses its correct address.

GUWonder

In passports, Japan has used a parental "registered domicile", and that too isn't always the same thing as a place of birth.

catandmouse

The place of birth is not recorded on any official Swiss document. The only thing recorded is the "place of origin". On my documents that includes the town and the 2-letter canton designation.

SQ421

My passport lists city of birth - which in my case is not in the country issuing the passport (the applicant can request for it to be left blank); and the only time I've gotten a puzzled look and an enquiry about it was at LAX.

landrew

I too am wondering whether it is a problem to list city (county, parish, hospital, registration, domicile) of birth (where that is allowed) in lieu of
country in my passport (not US).

Looks like sq421 has had minimal difficulty getting into US (but with puzzled looks), although the US is one country that normally requires place of birth to enter. Anyone else have experience to share?

crescatfloreat

well that's different. your place of origin (or home, as the german heimatort shows better) is really your citizenship, from which cantonal and whole big federal citizenship derive.

keep in mind naturalisations even happen at the local level in the good old confoederatio.

icao doesn't require a mention of place of birth / origin, interestingly; so i guess it's a remnant from old times, like physical description that have disappeared (colour of hair!).

al

AppleApe

how do they list place of birth if an American tourist gives birth to a baby while vacationing in Switzerland? what will the US consular birth report or passport say if the mother choose to exercise the "city of birth" option?