Talk:Postal code

Old posts from 2002-2004

Put your text for the new page here.

Dear Man & Woman Please inform me if an information source where I may locate a list of nations of the world that "do not" have postal codes. Your assistance shall be sincerely appreciated. Thank you, C. Robert Keathley, opa@pflash.com

---

Hm, well that's an interesting enquiry ... the encyclopedia doesn't usually work quite like that, it usually tries to grow the encylopedia itself, rather than respond directly to enquiries ... and yours is particularly tricky because you're looking for an absence of something, which might be a bit hard to see! Have you tried the (external link to) Universal Postal Union website? They have a section on postcodes - maybe you will get some help there. Good luck. By the way I have responded here rathert than dirrectly to your email becasue I sort of think that's more what we should be doing. I hope this helps. Nevilley 18:13 Dec 11, 2002 (UTC)

---

Can 'numbers' and 'digits' be used interchangeably? I thought numbers could consist of any number of digits, but I am not a native speaker of English. branko

You're right, though. Deb 17:28, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thanks Deb.

Here's my next question: according to the text, 'Every nation has a different format and placement for the postal code'. Is this really nation dependendant, or more like postal company dependant? It strikes me as odd that nations would interfere with a company's business methods. branko

We only have one real postal company in the UK - the Royal Mail - and they make the decisions, I believe. Couriers and other delivery companies use the postcodes specified by the Royal Mail. Deb 19:59, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Same in Canada...Canada Post is government-run, so it's not that the government is interfering with a private business. Other companies just use the postal codes specified by Canada Post. Adam Bishop 20:04, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

---

I think it would be better if the examples used 1 and A instead of D and L. Eg, UK postcode would be AA11 1AA. opinions? -- Tarquin 11:21, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

if we change it, we should look at other articles as well. i once change inconsistance between AN and LD.

• A1 - is more like example
• AN - AlphaNumeric and the same as in UPU-documents
• DL -

Tobias Conradi 19:50, 4 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Do the country names need to be bold?

Do the country names need to be bold? --Hemanshu 12:25, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Date of changeover

I was seeking the year in which the zip code replaced the old postal zones in the U.S. Might be a nice addition to the page on postal codes. JD

'Postcode', 'Post code' and 'Postal Code'

The article title 'Postcode' notes the alternate spacing 'Post code' used in some countries (implying they're basically the same thing). By this logic 'Post Code' should redirect to 'postcode'; however, 'Post Code' *actually* redirects to 'Postal Code'....

Although I'd ask if this should be fixed, it presents a more general question about the organisation of content between the two articles. The 'Postcode' article aims to be generic (references to postcodes in countries outside the UK), yet concentrates on the UK system too much for this. And as mentioned, there's already a generic article about it ('Postal code')

My proposal is to move non-UK content in the 'postcode' article to the generic 'Postal code' article. This still leaves the UK-specific content remaining; and the article could then be titled more appropriately ('Postcodes in the UK', or something along those lines).

Finally, 'Post code' and 'Postcode' would both redirect to 'Postal code'.

(Apologies for the lack of account, which will be sorted. Please reply here, not to my anonymous 'user'. I'm on dial-up; plus, the address given is apparently the ISP's transparent web-cache address, not mine).

Article discrepancies

Hi. Has anyone noticed that Germany was the first country to recieve postcodes in 'the early 1960s', but the UK first got them in 1959.... Does something need to be changed?

Too much information?

We now have information on how to write an address in Sweden ([1]). I think we need to keep this article to just information on post codes - what do you think? --Tim 21:16, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree. Cleaned the page. TrueColour (talk) 14:09, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Germany First?

In fact UK used limited postcodes in major cities in the 19th Century - London, Manchester etc.

This was extended in the 1st world war when all the experienced postal sorters went off to war and replacements with no experience in sorting were brought in.

Article is correct in that a system was not adopted for the whole country until the 60s.

202.130.120.26 07:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Link Idea

Hi there. My name is Jordan Taylor and I was wondering if whoever the editor of the postal code (wikipedia) page is could review my site. I think it would make an excellent external link to the article not only because we offer a great postal/zip code lookup service, but also because we are currently listed as number on Google for the search query "postal code lookup" right after Canada post. Anyway, here is the information for the site www.postalcodelookup.ca

Name: Postal Code Lookup URL: http://www.postalcodelookup.ca/ Description: This site provides its users with access to useful postal and zip code listings, as well as other mailing components.

Thanks for your time, any questions please feel free to email me at <redacted>

99.228.195.127 19:23, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Country prefix

In Europe most countries now do no longer accept country prefixes in front of the post code as this can cause problems during the sorting process. Rather than prefixes the country name should be printed in full in the last line of the address. Ipwaz2003 09:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

If you can find some formal recommendations by some of these countries and/or by a European or world-wide standards body, please provide some references and improve the section. i had a look around and the best source i found was Frank da Cruz' page: http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/postal.html#europe . Looking through the websites of the various official international bodies, it was not easy to find anything which seems to be a recommended standard. Even the UPU URL which i've put - http://www.upu.int/post_code/en/formatting_an_international_address_en.pdf - discusses the issue in a sentence which is grammatically faulty. i'm also curious about this UPU document's mention of "EN ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2" codes. Does this mean that there are a different set of ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 codes for every language according to the UPU? i.e. FR ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 codes and DE ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 codes and JA ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 codes and so on? Surely that would defeat the whole point of an international standard... Clearly the document is not that carefully written. Boud (talk) 14:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Could someone give me postal code of any area in USA (I mean,city)?

Could someone give me postal code of any area in USA (I mean,city)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by ModernTalking81 (talk • contribs) 16:34, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

There are plenty of online sources including usps.com. ww2censor (talk) 17:24, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Postal/ZIP Codes in the Philippines

The Philippine Postal Corporation refers to the postal codes as ZIP codes because despite being long independent from U.S. colonization, the government still has a predilection towards the U.S. This an example of colonial mentality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.125.33.139 (talk) 19:41, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Ireland

A partial update on the Irish postcode proposal can be found here Irish Times Tuesday, September 9, 2008 .--Trounce (talk) 13:37, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The Irish Timesnewspaper report says that government departments will make savings but still no details or introduction date have been announced. ww2censor (talk) 14:26, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

There is some more info here:Postcode war 'in next year' -by John O'Keeffe Sunday Independent 21 Sept 2008--Trounce (talk) 11:31, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I sometimes get forms which say, "postcode obligatory" (even from Irish sources in spite of there being no postcodes here). I was advised to put in the area telephone code, in my case 051, followed by the next three digits, eg 337, which give some indication of the town or townland. Whilst this is totally unofficial it is apparently of some use to postal delivery people. Millbanks (talk) 09:16, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Can you make a scan and show an Irish source item. Are these An Post forms you refer to? Who told you to use a telephone code and can you get that in writing? Are there any verifiable sources for this? ww2censor (talk) 17:27, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Germany

The old German system consisted of two digits PLUS ONE LETTER. My birthplace had "21a". Phosphoros —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.102.96.226 (talk) 12:14, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Do you have any verifiable sources for this statement? If so, we can add it to the article, otherwise we will not add it. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 01:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

File:PLZ-DE-1946.jpg --66.18.5.4 (talk) 20:25, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

First postal "Indexes" introduced in Ukraine (USSR) in 1932

Postal codes were first implemented in the USSR from 1932 through 1939. They were called "Indexes" and were represented by a "number–letter–number" code, e.g., 12Y1, 14Y8 etc. The Cyrillic "Y" in the middle stood for "Ukraina." At that time, Kharkiv was the capital of the Ukrainian SSR, and the prefixes 1 to 10 before the "Y" were devoted to that city, where the system was founded; prefix numbers 11 to 20 were reserved for Kiev. The suffix digit indicated smaller postal districts. This system was discontinued at the start of the Second World War. http://zip.belpost.by/content/history 142.244.43.106 (talk) 22:18, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of information

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Postal_code&diff=318789738&oldid=318789531 by Ww2censor
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Postal_code&diff=318788542&oldid=318788461 by Blanchardb

Please do not delete the overview table as it gives more information than was previously there. Also the table allows for sorting and has links to all the articles in form "Postal codes in ...", which are perfect for country series. The page as it was would not be manageable for information about _all_ countries. TrueColour (talk) 02:43, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Please discuss your proposed revisions to this article. This is a worldview article and should remain as such. your edits are too drastic a change to just inflict on the page without due discussion. You have decimated the prose and are turning this into a list from a useful article. Who decide that the form of sub articles in the from of "Postal codes in ..." are what the philately project wants or needs. We really need a wider set of opinions before making all these changes. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 03:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The page only had given infos for a subset of countries. There were 64 sections. The UN has 192 members. This subset is not useful. It should be a worldwide overview, without bias to certain countries. Yes, to have more prose would be nice. This should be general prose and not one senetence prose like "Latvia has a 5 digit system". This is not useful neither. Prose should contain outstanding features of certain codes. The rest can go into individual articles and an overview given by a table. TrueColour (talk) 09:49, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

This is not just a single article issue but a project wide issue that should be agreed before putting into effect. The edits to this article are high disruptive and you should be removing so much material without agreement. All the subset page you created are, in my opinion, improperly named and most are fairly useless stubs that no one will find. If you wanted to create a list within this article to analyse the date of issuance and style of postcode that might b e useful but turning this article into a list does a disservice to readers, who now must search for a link through to your now mainly stub articles that were well accommodated within the article. Please discuss before any further edits and if you wish make a take on one of your userpage that show what you propose. ww2censor (talk) 16:41, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

1) "All the subset page you created are, in my opinion, improperly named and most are fairly useless stubs that no one will find."

how would you name

* Postal codes in Germany

* Postal codes in Sweden

Now with stubs or longer articles created people have more incentives to add information. The continent topic series clearly shows for which country no information is given at all. Also the table should be improved to add more info. People from country projects may watch their country specific article, but not the big list of 62 sections, which if all countries with postcodes would be included would have 117 or so sections. Small articles and stubs may grow.

2) "who now must search for a link through to your now mainly stub articles that were well accommodated within the article." What do you mean by that? I would like to address that.

3) It is difficult to run an article with 117 sections. So the country sections had to go for sure. Stripping off the country specific information shows, that there is not much left in the article. I think there should be more general, aggregating information. TrueColour (talk) 18:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Continent in topic

I added to some articles:

TrueColour (talk) 02:55, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Erroneous information about UK postcodes

This article repeats the erronoeous belief that house name and postcode uniquely identifies a building in the UK. If you check http://postcode.royalmail.com/portal/rm/addressfinder and look for house number 1 at HD7 5XA you will find no fewer than eleven number ones in that postcode. This is surely not unique. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.8.33.69 (talk) 13:39, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

It also repeats the belief that the first line of the address and postcode uniquely identify a postbox. The PAF contains a number of addresses which start with a surname (usually that of an occupant) in brackets, possibly to reflect farmhouses which were split into two some time ago. There are web page which give these addresses without the bracketed line (such as this one which refers to a Gilsbrake, Vidlin, Shetland, ZE2 9QB), but I don't know if there is any official guidance on how to correctly send a letter to such an address. Aoeuidhtns (talk) 12:57, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Postcodes are generally clearly visible outside Australia Post offices.

Doesn't this really mean that (some or all) Australian post offices have their postcodes on their external signs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.103.145 (talk) 15:49, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Move Format section to List of postal codes

The Format section of this article duplicates what is in List of postal codes. I suggest removing the section and having just a link to List of postal codes. Lkmorlan (talk) 14:24, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Both say they may be incomplete. It may be a pain to compare them, unless somone has already. Could we just collapse this section if they don't contain the same info? Fine with me to delete and link if they do match.--Canoe1967 (talk) 13:11, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Both are identical. There were two different lists formatted differently. I merged the content on the other page into this one and copied the resulting content onto the other page.Lkmorlan (talk) 16:39, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

However just moving the section without leaving a short summary should not take place. ww2censor (talk) 14:54, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Since the 2 lists are currently identical, I have removed the list from this article to reduce the risk of the 2 diverging and otherwise becoming a maintenance headache. If there is any objection then I suggest the list be made into a template so any updates only need to be applied once. Ww2censor, I couldn't think of a suitable summary, please will you add something suitable. Hope this all helps. Op47 (talk) 19:32, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

That move appears to be a resasonable one so long as a short summary is left to provide context, as I mentioned previously. But Op47, you have not done that yet. ww2censor (talk) 21:59, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Precision

The section titled "Precision" has a lot of information on certain countries' general code formats. Such information is not directly related to precision, and besides, the information given for the US is inaccurate. I suggest some pruning. Doctor Whom (talk) 23:12, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I've made the proposed change to the US section. I'll do the UK section later unless someone wants to beat me to it. Doctor Whom (talk) 01:07, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

History

According to the article, postcodes were first used in the USSR in the 1930s. Would the London postal district codes - in use as abbreviated letters from the 1850s - count as an early form? "London NW" seems to be a "postal code" albeit a very basic one. Numbers were added in WWI. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:11, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Outdated map

The map used on this page; File:Postal codes by country.svg, is inaccurate and outdated (as was much of the page - I've tried to bring it up to date where possible ...). It doesn't show countries which now have codes, does not show countries which have mixed formats (e.g. USA and UK - it shows these as though they have fixed formats), shows some countries as having codes where they don't .... A more accurate (though not as professional) map is available at http://www.grcdi.nl/WorldPostalCodeFormats01.2013.png . Can the author of the map currently shown on the page be contacted for an updated version? Or can somebody make a new one? I can provide all required information.

Grahamrhind (talk) 13:05, 6 November 2013 (UTC) Graham Rhind

The author of that image is not around since last year, so someone else will need to do it. Let me have a look at it and see if I can modify it to update it with some software I have here on one of my computers. Do you have wiki email setup in which case we can communicate like that? ww2censor (talk) 13:51, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, e-mail is set up. I could probably alter the current graphic myself, with much fiddling and faffing about, but I didn't want to do so if the current author was still working on it, and my graphics skills are not as good as my knowledge of postal codes ... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grahamrhind (talk • contribs) 14:21, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll download the file and see if I can open it and easily change colours within country boundaries. If so, we can move forward. ww2censor (talk) 20:19, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

FWIW, Postcodes in the United Kingdom gives a maximum of eight characters (seemingly not including the space) but the formats given imply a maximum of seven characters (eight including the optional space). The diagram gives 6 for the UK, probably under a simplistic assumption given that postcodes in the UK are frequently six characters (plus a space). Ghiraddje 23:59, 22 December 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ghiraddje (talk • contribs)

Based on the data in the UK article: between five and eight characters long, plus a single space, I assume the person making the map used 6 as the basic value for UK code, which is strictly speaking correct though you can see that 9 is also possible. How does one colour the map to show those possible differences? I can't see an easy way to do that. ww2censor (talk) 10:22, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

The UK article was wrong - I have corrected it. A UK postcode consists of between six and eight characters INCLUDING the space. Punctuation and spacing are an integral part of postal codes - it makes no sense to show formats or lengths without including them. On my map of postal code lengths in the world I use a separate colour for mixed formats/lengths. There are quite a number of countries with mixed length postal codes, which the map under discussion here don't show correctly. (Sorry I didn't react before but Wikipedia never tells me when any of these pages are updated - I don't know why - I have "follow page" turned on ...)grahamrhind (talk) 16th January 2014 —Preceding undated comment added 09:43, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Improved map

Aside from the outdated features noted previously, I wonder if a new map could distinguish numeric postal codes on the basis of whether or not leading zeroes are allowed – and, if they are, whether they are – as is logically possible – used only for military or diplomatic mail?

In fact, if anybody has decent comparative data, information on how various countries use postal codes for military and diplomatic mail would certainly be welcome. Looking through the sites it does appear that some countries do not have postal codes set aside for military or diplomatic mail, as ZIP codes 09000 to 09999 are in the US. luokehao, 13th October 2014 23:14 (UTC)

I will be releasing a site with all this information in November. Watch this space (and, if I forget to post, remind me ...). Incidentally, MOST countries do not have separate military postal codes - it would be easier to show only those that do.

The resource is now online at http://www.grcdi.nl/gsb/ Grahamrhind

Missing info on the purpose of postal codes

It is not very clear from the article what the actual purpose of postal codes is. Only a brief note that it is for purpose of sorting mail, without any further details. --francesco3 (talk) 12:24, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

External links - addition request

Some long-standing links have been removed due, apparently, to a perceived conflict of interest. Please note that I receive absolutely nothing through visits to the pages concerned. There is no pay per click advertising and the fixed advertising simply helps to offset the hosting costs. The links are for resources considered authoritative and have been published (in book form and now online) since 1994, and are the result of 22 years of continuous research. I add them to provide a quality resource to Wikipedia users. Please consider restoring: Global Sourcebook for International Data Management, http://www.grcdi.nl/linkspc.htm Links to pages on the web with information about postal codes and http://www.grcdi.nl/linkspo.htm Links to postal service web pages. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grahamrhind (talk • contribs) 15:53, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

ZIP vs ZIP+4 in the US on the map

The map lists that the US uses a 10 digit postal code. While this is technically true in theory, in practice it tends to get rarely used, and very few people even know their ZIP+4 by heart because it is not very useful to them. I know there are other concerns that people have with the map, but I think that it should be listed as both 5 and 9 digits, striped to signify that it has both. Calling ZIP codes 9 digits doesn't sit well for me, because it is mostly not used that way.

Dangeredwolf (talk) 12:34, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Update

The text says 'In February 2005, 117 of the 190 member countries of the Universal Postal Union had postal code systems.' - could a newer figure be used (or add 'and in (date) the numbers were ...). Jackiespeel (talk) 11:27, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Section "Criticism from the 2010s"

@Krauss: Some some references should be added to this unsourced section. To me it seems more like a creative idea than real life criticism. Some claims seem unrealistic, eg. "without administrative cost". Who have criticized the system in which countries in which media? References, or the section shuld be deleted. --Madglad (talk) 13:26, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

@Madglad: Hi, I agree that the text was bad... I edited, please check. After it I can cite sources... I am looking for, and back here later. Krauss (talk) 23:43, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

@Krauss: Extending the text doesn't solve the problem with no sources. And the text still can be shortened to: "Somebody has somewhere posed an idea of replacing the postal code system". I am removing the section. It can be found in the article history and reinserted with sources. --Madglad (talk) 06:29, 13 August 2021 (UTC)