July 1 - ZIP Code Day

nPosted on July 1, 2019

Key Points

nJuly 1 is National Postal Workers Day in the U.S. AND U.S. Postage Stamp Day (see link below, in “Also on this date”) – but it’s also ZIP Code Day.

nThat’s because the first 5-digit ZIP codes were introduced all over the United States on this date in 1963.

In order to encourage people to use the new ZIP codes,
a sort of ZIP code mascot, Mr. ZIP, was introduced in
ads. The emphasis was on speed!

nThe use of the ZIP codes was not mandatory, but people were urged to use them to keep mail zipping along.

nBefore there were ZIP codes, there were postal district numbers for the 124 largest cities in the nation. These numbers were either one or two digits, and they were written between the city and the state. For example, a Minneapolis address might read “Minneapolis 16, Minnesota” or “Birmingham 7, Alabama”; the “16” and “7” were the pre-ZIP Code postal codes in these examples.

nThese postal codes were created during World War II in an effort to make a short-staffed postal system more efficient. (Thousands of experienced postal employees had left to serve with the military.) Even newcomers and substitutes could easily sort mail using these postal codes – without having to learn where a city’s worth of streets and addresses were located.

nThose short postal codes haven’t been abandoned, because they are generally the last two digits the current ZIP Code.

nWhat about the first three digits of a ZIP code? Postal inspector Robert Moon suggested, in 1944, using three digits in order to code which sectional center facility (SCF) each piece of mail should go to for further sorting and delivery.

nHowever, his system was never used until the early 1960s.

nDid you know…?

ZIP actually is an acronym that means Zone Improvement Plan!

Most nations have postal codes of some sort – although many small nations don’t (for example, neither the Bahamas nor Kiribati have them), and many nations that have relatively small economies don’t, either (examples include Burkina Faso in Africa and Bolivia in South America).

Some place with few or no inhabitants don’t have ZIP codes!

Some nations use letters or letters-and-numbers as their postal codes. An example of a nation that uses mixed numbers-and-letters postal codes (called the postcode) is the United Kingdom. U.K. postcodes also have a varying number of symbols, in two sections; the first section is two to four letters or letters-and-numbers, and the second section is always one number and two letters.

Now that the United States is moving from 5-digit ZIP codes to ZIP+4 codes (nine numbers separated into two groups by a hyphen), it has one of the longest postal codes in the world. But Iran has TEN numbers – without any spaces or hyphens, apparently! Which just makes it so hard! – so it probably wins the longest-postal-code award.

The White House has its own ZIP code. There are 42 buildings in New York City that have their own ZIP codes, including Saks Fifth Avenue, and there are a few other places in the U.S. with a unique ZIP code, including Dodger Stadium, the CIA, and….

…And including the General Electric plant in Schenectady, New York. This one-ZIP-code plant has such an easy ZIP code – 12345 – that it gets mail for all sorts of fictional characters such as Micky Mouse and John Doe!