Postal Code Facts

If you hate Math and you argue that you can live without it, you might be assuming too much.

You can mail all your arguments to the authorities and the people behind Math, but your complaints won’t be able to reach them without Math itself. You can mail them through the Internet, but computers use numbers as their language. You can snail mail them, but you need to write the postal codes on the envelopes.

You can’t do away with numbers. The first step to liking them could be appreciating postal codes. Postal codes are a combination of numbers and letters used to represent a specific place.

Here are the top ten interesting facts about postal codes. With these, you may learn to appreciate the art of using numbers in our everyday lives.

1. Washington DC - Special Postal Code

Washington, D.C., like any other state in the United States, has its own postal code. Santa Claus in Canada has his own postal code, too. If special residences have their own codes, does this include that of the President?

The White House in Washington, D.C., specifically the First Family, receives private mail. That said, they use a secret postal code that is different from the code that identifies the state it’s in.

2. Santa Claus Has a Postal Code

All countries in the world have their own postal codes. Every town, municipality, city – name it – is identified properly with a postal code. In the city of the North Pole in Alaska where 1,778 residents are used to the cold, a postal code of 99705 is used. That is the postal code you should use if you want to write directly to a relative in North Pole, or better, to Santa Claus himself.

In Canada, residents have a postal code for Santa Claus. Parents tell their kids to write their wish list on a clean sheet of paper and then send it to Santa Claus’ address. Santa Claus’ postal code is: HOH OHO.

3. Triple C: Canada’s Confusing Codes

In Canada, postal codes can be quite confusing. The formation of a postal code is considered tricky because of the alternating positions of letters and number.

The pattern is as follows: letter – number – letter (space) number – letter – number. To put it clearly, a Canadian postal code looks this way: B7B 7B7.

Here are some examples of postal codes in Canada: V1A 1A2, T5T 4M2,R3C 1A4, H1Y 2H8, K0H 2H0, C0A 1M0, X0A 1H0 and M5V 2T6. Now, isn’t that confusing but interesting?

4. You Can Find This Only in Canada

In Canada, especially in the urban areas of the country, you can send a letter to a specific recipient even without writing the complete address because a postal code can be assigned to an office building or to a city. Sometimes, an apartment has its own postal code, too.

If you are sending a letter to John Parker at 321 Robin Street, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 0B3, you could simply write “John, 321, S7N 0B3” on the envelope, because John’s apartment building has its own code. Snail mail has never been easier than that, which you’ll only find in Canada!

5. New York Fancy Codes

What is considered the world’s fanciest postal code can be found in New York, USA. In the early part of 2007, what was regarded as the swankiest code in NYC became more exclusive.

Originally, the wealthy locality was distinguished by the postal code 10021. The neighborhood using this postal code consists of areas from the East River to the Central Park between East 80th Rtreets and East 61Street.

The U.S. Postal Service announced early in 2007 that New York will let go of the zip code 10021 to divide it into three, exclusively for the different affluent neighborhoods in New York.

6. Interesting Zip Codes

You may dream of staying in a country where the culture is rich and is continuously preserved. You can also choose to live in a state where the climate is what you consider ideal. Others, however, have a strange liking towards places with interesting postal codes.

Any of the following on the envelope may appear fascinating to some people: 12345 for Schenectady, New York, 55555 for Young America, Minnesota, 44444 for Newton Falls, Ohio, and 22222 for Arlington, Virginia, . Don’t you think that it would indeed be interesting to stay at any of these places?

7. Decoding Postal Secrets

Since the postal code is a type of code, the symbols used (which are in the form of letters and numbers) are not just any letter or number randomly selected by a state’s postal service. It means, then, that this can be decoded. By decoding a postal code, significant information about that place is revealed.

In the United States, the first number represents a wide geographical area in America. It is nine for the far West ,and zero for the Northeast. The concentration of a state’s population is specified by the next two numbers. The last number are for the larger zoned cities’ use. This is where small post offices are identified.

8. A Significant Event in 1983

In 1983, ZIP+4 was established. You will notice that there are extra four digits used to represent a specific location. The US Postal Service suggested that the sixth and seventh numbers identify a particular sector for delivery, which may be a small geographic area, a large apartment building, several office buildings, a single high-rise office building, several blocks, a group of post office boxes or a group of streets.

The last two digits represent a segment for delivery that can be a group of post office boxes, one floor of an office building, specific departments in a company or one side of a street in the middle of two intersecting streets.

9. Postal Coding in Australia

Ideally, a postal code is made of digits and numbers to make sorting mail easier. In Australia, they use numbers alone for a postal code. To identify a specific Australian state, a letter is not used. Instead, one number, which is placed first in the postal code, represents the state it belongs to.

10. US Mail Classifications

The United States Postal Service has classified the mail into 4 types.

The first class mail includes regular mail while the second class is for newspapers and magazines. Junk mail has its own category and it is classified as the third, while large parcels and packages belong to the fourth class.

Whether you like it or not, you can’t get away with numbers and certain mathematical concepts like decoding. These are significant when sending messages (in the form of human language) to your respective recipients.

Appreciating postal codes can help you win half the battle of learning to love numbers. Take the risk and you will realize that it isn’t even a risk at all.