Postal code: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:51, 28 September 2005

Revision as of 16:47, 4 October 2005

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[[Germany]] was the world's first country with a postal code system in the early 1960s. The [[United States]] followed a couple of years later.

The vast majority of the world's national [[mail|postal service]]s have postal code systems. A few do not: [[Ireland]] (with the exception of [[Dublin]]) and, [[Hong Kong]], [[Panama]], and the [[Dominican Republic]] for example, do not have postal codes^{[[#Footnote|1]]}, while [[New Zealand]]'s [[New Zealand postal addresses|post code system]] is only used for the presorting of mail in bulk, not for addressing individual items.

Postal services often have their own distinctive formats and placement rules for postal codes. (Service areas, as a rule, are defined by [[nation]]al borders.) In most English-speaking countries, the postal code goes after the name of the city or town, whereas in most continental European countries it goes before it and is sometimes prefixed with a [[country code]] ([[ISO 3166-1 alpha-2]]).