I'll try to say it in the least words I can so that it might be easier to explain:

Suppose I want to let my users input their customer's addresses. First of all I need some auto completion: the "state" select must suggest only states of the country selected previously and then so on with province, then city. The ZIP code must be one of the ZIP codes of the admin area selected.

Then they should be able to make this data accessible to other entities, for example a shipping company, so the identifiers of those address components must be "universal". But each of those address components also need localization and internationalization: if shared with an Italian I want the region to be called "Lombardia", if it is shared with an American it should be called "Lombardy", etc...

I hope it is clear enough :)