Did you know that postal code is just a simple character set? This article explains in detail what it is, why it is needed and how it works. After reading the material below, you will dive deep into the topic enough to understand the issues you are interested in. You are probably familiar with this term, you just do not understand what is at stake. From English, the postal code translates to "zip code."
general information
It is known that postal code is a sequence of numbers and letters, sometimes with spaces or punctuation marks included in the mailing address for sorting mail. In February 2005, 117 of the 190 countries of the Universal Postal Union had postal code systems.
Although postal codes are usually assigned to geographic areas, special codes are sometimes assigned to individual addresses or agencies that receive a large number of letters, such as government agencies and large commercial companies. One example is the French CEDEX system. It can be seen that postal code is not a tricky term at all, but the usual understandable technology.
History
The development of postal codes reflects the increasing complexity of delivery as the population grows. Codes began with the numbers of post offices in major cities. London was divided into 10 districts in 1857, and Liverpool in 1864. By World War I, such zones existed in various large cities of Europe.
By 1930, the idea of spreading districts outside major cities even encompassed small towns and rural areas. They turned into postal codes, as we call them today. It is generally accepted that postal code is a legacy of the USRS, where they were presented in their modern form in December 1932.
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The following characters are used in postal codes:
- Arabic numerals from 0 to 9.
- Letters of the basic latin alphabet.
- Spaces and hyphens.
Indices in the Netherlands did not initially use the letters F, I, O, Q, U, and Y for technical reasons. But since almost all existing combinations are now used, these letters have been allowed for new addresses starting in 2005. SS, SD, and SA combinations are not used for historical reasons.
Canada does not include the characters D, F, I, O, Q, or U, because OCR equipment used in automated sorting can easily be confused with other letters and numbers. The letters W and Z are not used as the first letter. Canadian postal codes use alternative characters (with a space after the third character) in this format: A9A 9A9.
In Ireland, the Eircode system uses only the following letters: A, C, D, E, F, H, K, N, P, R, T, V, W, X, Y. This serves two purposes: to avoid confusion in OCR and avoid accidental doubling.