Iowa · sequential passenger map
Iowa license-plate format
Iowa passenger plates use three letters, a space, and three digits. In this atlas the pattern string uses A for a letter slot and 9 for a digit slot. Other characters are separators that appear on the metal but do not enlarge the combination space.
- Pattern
- AAA 999
- Classes
- 3 letters + 3 digits
- Alphabet size
- 26
- Skipped letters
- none modelled
- Combination count
- 17,576,000
- Model year
- 1997
How the map works
Each A slot independently takes one glyph from ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ. Each 9 slot takes 0–9. The product of those bases is 17,576,000 — the size of the sequential space taught here. Hyphens, spaces and dots in AAA 999 are display only.
Iowa dropped county-number bases in the 1990s in favour of a simple three-by-three serial on a sky-and-field graphic.
Before this map, Iowa used county numeric plates. Optional graphics (universities, military, environmental) can look nothing like the sequential passenger die and are not counted in the 17,576,000 figure.
Small combination space: 26³×10³ if all letters are live.
Generated versus issued
A string that fits AAA 999 is in-class. It is not automatically an issued plate. Series can skip blocks, retire numbers, or reserve low digits. This essay never queries a motor-vehicle file. See also generated vs issued.