Addition to T-Mo's post. This applies to Japanese export vehicles to the US only. Japanese Domestic Market vehicles merely use the designation eg: EF9, EF8, EF2 etc plus the production serial number with no other VIN identifiers.
A lot of T-Mo's info applies to Aussie Civics as well (yes, a few Aussies use these forums), but don't take it as gospel as we have a slightly different system. As I recollect, my old GL Hatch started JHMED6-serial and the Si (DOHC) CRX was JHMED9-serial. Can any Aussie confirm the latter please?
(I'm just adding this is as I get a lot of Q's about people following USDM manuals etc and getting confused because we don't have quite the same cars).
Nice post T-Mo
