Type A — US two-blade (NEMA 1-15)
- Pins
- 2
- Spacing
- 13 mm
- Rated
- 15 A
- Earthed
- no
Drawn from pin dimensions at one scale across the whole site — hold a plug against the screen and it should look familiar.
The unearthed two-blade plug of North and Central America and Japan: two flat parallel pins on 12.7 mm centres, often with a small hole near each tip that catches gripping bumps inside older sockets. The US polarized version widens the neutral blade so the plug only goes in one way; Japanese blades are the same size, which is why Japanese plugs fit American sockets but American polarized plugs often refuse Japanese ones.
What fits a Type A socket
Only its own plug — nothing else seats in a Type A socket. A plugs also fit Type B sockets, which add an earth hole below the slots. Polarized A plugs (wide neutral) may not enter unpolarized Japanese sockets.
Facts verified against IEC World Plugs — Type A. Prose is our own.
Where you'll meet it
- American Samoa120 V
- Anguilla110 V
- Antigua and Barbuda230 V
- Aruba127 V
- Bahamas120 V
- Barbados115 V
- Belize110/220 V
- Bermuda120 V
- Bolivia115/230 V
- British Virgin Islands110 V
- Cambodia230 V
- Canada120 V
- Cayman Islands120 V
- China220 V
- Colombia110 V
- Costa Rica120 V
- Cuba110 V
- Dominican Republic110 V
- Ecuador120 V
- El Salvador115 V
- Guam110 V
- Guatemala120 V
- Guyana240 V
- Haiti110 V
- Honduras110 V
- Jamaica110 V
- Japan100 V
- Laos230 V
- Lebanon220 V
- Liberia120/220 V
- Malaysia240 V
- Mexico127 V
- Micronesia120 V
- Montserrat230 V
- Nicaragua120 V
- Niger220 V
- North Korea220/110 V
- Palau120 V
- Panama110 V
- Peru220 V
- Philippines230 V
- Puerto Rico120 V
- Saint Kitts and Nevis230 V
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines230 V
- Taiwan110 V
- Thailand220 V
- Trinidad and Tobago115 V
- Turks and Caicos Islands120 V
- United States120 V
- United States Virgin Islands110 V
- Venezuela120 V
- Vietnam220 V