I was referring to the 5-digit ones; many websites request that you input either your 5-digit US zip or 6-digit Canadian postal code. It would be more appropriate to require the first three digits of the Canadian code.
So, [slight hijack] in the US, do you need to put anything except the Name, Street Adress, and Zip?[/slight hijack]
This is not true in general. I did a search at the post office web site for my house and my neighbors house and we both have the same zip+4 code. Also a few down the street had the same zip +4. the next street had a different code.
I did a search and found that my side of the street had the same 9 digit code, while the odd numbered side had a very different one.
There is the potential, acording to my search, for 50 houses on my street to share that same 9 digit code.
Well, a stamp helps, but yes, that’s all you need.
I saw an interview with Sam Donaldson on TV. Apparently someone didn’t like something that Sam said once and sent him a letter saying so. The letter was addressed to “Sandanista Sam, Washington DC”. The Post Office delivered it promptly to Sam Donaldson.
missbunny writes:
> Speaking of the efficiency of the USPS, I know they get
> lots of jokes heaped upon them but I thought I’d mention
> the letter I recently received at my office. It was
> postmarked Paris, France, and had no return address. It
> was mailed to me in this format:
>
> M. Bunny
> 123 Atlantic Avenue
> USA
>
> No company name, no city, no ZIP. And it got to me
> (although it took about 2 months). I have no idea how the
> PO figured that one out.
How rare is the combination of your first (name? initial?) and last name? The letter probably went to a dead letter office in the U.S. where they looked up your name online in a national phone book. They found one person with the right name and street address.
The 9-digit zip identifies one side of one block of one street. If your house happens to be the only house on that side of that block (as ours is), then it is a unique identifier for your house. The 11-digit zip adds the last two digits of the house number, which should uniquely identify each house, in most situations.
My mother once received a postcard which contained only her name, that a friend travelling in Japan had mailed to her. Our conjecture was that the friend had mailed a bunch of postcards to people in our home town (in the US), and it had just travelled back to our town with all the rest of them.
The eleven-digit Zip Code (well, technically Zip+6) zeroes in on the particular house, apartment, office in a building, etc., that would be a “specific address.” The nine-digit ZIP+4 code identifies a city block, section of a rural route, office building, etc. One exception: a Post Office Box has a unique ZIP+4.
Some useful guidelines:
In general, at a PO where both deliveries and boxes have the same ZIP code, the PO boxes have +4 codes of the box number with leading zeroes to make a four-digit number, so that PO Box 2 at Ellisburg NY 13636 has a ZIP+4 of 13636-0002.
Rural Route ZIP+4 codes cover groups of boxes, with the occasional large unit (rural company, etc.) having its own ZIP+4, and (in the absence of 911 addresses of the form 13478 Old Chronos Road) they are nearly the top of the possible +4 codes. An overall code for any rural route is 980x, with x being the route number, i.e., RR 1 is -9801, RR 4 is -9804, HCR 36 is -9836, and so on. More specific addresses are -97xx for RR 1 addresses, in delivery order, -96xx for RR 2, and so on, with the caveat that route length often varies those codings.
Usually downtown addresses will be -1001, -1325, and so on, with residential blocks somewhat higher and numbered exurban and rural roads up in the -5xxx and -6xxx range.
The Postmaster of every post office has the -9998 code, and General Delivery is always -9999.
Naturally, in a large city post office where there are thousands of boxes, other coding is used, so that Syracuse NY Downtown Post Office services delivery addresses at 13202-xxxx and has PO Boxes from 13201-0001 through 13201-9999 (at least theoretically – I’m not sure how many boxes it has). Five and six digit PO boxes are located where a multi-post-office city has numerous PO boxes located at various post offices in the city, so that Raleigh might have PO Box 10314 as a downtown box with a ZIP+4 of 27601-0314 and PO Box 220314 at the Crabtree Valley PO and a ZIP+4 of 27622-0314.
A large business, with much mail, is likely to have its own ZIP+4 code, while a block of a residential street, or a half mile of country road with two farms and seven rural homes, may share one. (This is the point for the +6 coding, which targets a given address on that block or half-mile stretch of road.)
And on preview I see Richard made the basic point I made already, but given the additional data I added, I’ll post this anyway.
You’re from Bangor!? Most of my in-laws live in the Bangor area (Bangor itself, Brewer, and up towards Old Town).
Receive lots of bridal and baby shower invitations down here in Texas.
I saw an invitation two years ago addressed this way:
Mrs. Sarah Henry
1901 Lanewood
City 76112
Awhile back, I was archiving correspondence from the 1920s.
I saw letters addressed to a someone in a 1920s U.S. small town this way:
Mr. John Warner
Georgetown, TX
and that was sufficient.