A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional services, which vary by country. These include providing and accepting government forms, and processing government services and fees. The chief administrator of a post office is called a postmaster.
A postmark is a postal marking made on an envelope, parcel, postcard or the like, indicating the place, date and time that the item was delivered into the care of a postal service, or sometimes indicating where and when received or in transit. Modern postmarks are often applied simultaneously with the cancellation or killer that marks postage stamps as having been used. Sometimes a postmark alone is used to cancel stamps, and the two terms are often used interchangeably. Postmarks may be applied by handstamp or machine, using methods such as rollers or inkjets, while digital postmarks are a recent innovation.
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the United States, its insular areas and associated states. It is one of a few government agencies explicitly authorized by the Constitution of the United States. As of 2023, the USPS has 525,469 career employees and 114,623 non-career employees.
A postal code is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal address for the purpose of sorting mail.
A ZIP Code is a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service (USPS). The term ZIP was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently and quickly when senders use the code in the postal address. The Philippine Postal Corporation also uses this terminology for the postal code system in the Philippines.
Robert Aurand Moon, sometimes called "Mr. ZIP", is considered the father of the ZIP Code or Zone Improvement Plan, a mechanism to route mail in the United States.
Postal codes used in the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been devised by the General Post Office.
Chesterbrook is a census-designated place (CDP) in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located within the Philadelphia metropolitan area and just south of Valley Forge National Historical Park. The population was 4,589 at the 2010 census.
Postal history is the study of postal systems and how they operate and, or, the study of the use of postage stamps and covers and associated postal artifacts illustrating historical episodes in the development of postal systems. The term is attributed to Robson Lowe, a professional philatelist, stamp dealer and stamp auctioneer, who made the first organised study of the subject in the 1930s and described philatelists as "students of science", but postal historians as "students of humanity". More precisely, philatelists describe postal history as the study of rates, routes, markings, and means.
A Canadian postal code is a six-character string that forms part of a postal address in Canada. Like British, Irish, and Dutch postcodes, Canada's postal codes are alphanumeric. They are in the format A1A 1A1, where A is a letter and 1 is a digit, with a space separating the third and fourth characters. As of October 2019, there were 876,445 postal codes, using forward sortation areas (FSAs), from A0A in Newfoundland to Y1A in Yukon.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and the modern Russian Federation.
A philatelic cover is an envelope prepared with a stamp(s) and address and sent through the mail delivery system for the purpose of creating a collectible item. Stamp collectors began to send mail to each other and to themselves early on, and philatelic mail is known from the late 19th century onward. While some collectors specialize in philatelic covers, especially first day covers and cacheted covers, others regard them as contrived objects that are not reflective of real-world usage, and often will pay a higher price for a cover that represents genuine commercial use. However, mail sent by stamp collectors is no less a genuine article of postage than is mail sent with no concern of seeing the mailed item again. Philatelic covers include mail from first airmail flight and first day of stamp issues ceremonies. Over the years there have been numerous Expositions where special postmarks are made and where a post office is set up where mail can be sent from on the given date of the Expo'. Like any other genuine item of mail these covers include postage stamps and postmarks of the time period and were processed and delivered by an official postal system. Often a philatelic cover will have more historical significance than randomly mailed covers as philatelic covers are also often mailed from the location on the date of an important or noteworthy event, like an inauguration or a space launch.
Berwyn is a census-designated place (CDP) in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. Berwyn is located in Tredyffrin and Easttown townships. The area is part of the Philadelphia Main Line suburbs.
Wayne is an unincorporated community centered in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, on the Main Line, a series of highly affluent Philadelphia suburbs located along the railroad tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad and one of the wealthiest areas in the nation. While the center of Wayne is in Radnor Township, Wayne extends into both Tredyffrin Township in Chester County and Upper Merion Township in Montgomery County. The center of Wayne was designated the Downtown Wayne Historic District in 2012. Considering the large area served by the Wayne post office, the community may extend slightly into Easttown Township, Chester County, as well.
Rhawnhurst is a residential neighborhood in the Northeast section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, named for George and William Rhawn by area real estate developers. Roughly bordered by Cottman Avenue to the south, Pennway Street to the west, the Pennypack Creek to the north, and Roosevelt Boulevard to the east, Rhawnhurst encompasses ZIP codes 19152 and part of ZIP code 19111. The geographic center of Rhawnhurst is at the intersection of Castor Avenue and Rhawn Street.
Russian Post is an Aktsionernoye Obschestvo which is the national postal operator of Russia. The company is responsible for the delivery of mail in Russia, and the issuing of postage stamps. Russian Post employs about 390,000 people and has over 42,000 post offices, with its headquarters in Moscow. In 2012 the Russian Post delivered more than 2.4 billion pieces of mail and accounted for more than 54 million parcels and more than 100 million in remittances. In March 2013 a presidential decree signed by President Vladimir Putin included the Russian Post in a list of so-called strategic enterprises.
Glenwood is an unincorporated community in Howard County, Maryland, United States. It is located between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., therefore attracting commuters to those employment centers. The community features acres of open space and is districted to Bushy Park Elementary, Glenwood and Folly Quarter Middle, and Glenelg High schools. Union Chapel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and Round About Hills was added in 2008. The population in 2020 was approximately 3,416.
90 Church Street is a federal office building in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The building houses the United States Postal Service's Church Street Station, which is responsible for the 10007 ZIP code. The building takes up a full block between Church Street and West Broadway and between Vesey and Barclay Streets.
A network distribution center (NDC) was a highly mechanized mail processing plant of the United States Postal Service that distributed standard mail and package services in piece and bulk form. The NDC network was dismantled in 2022-2023 by the USPS as part of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s Delivering for America network rationalization plan, which saw mail classes formerly handled by the NDC network merged into mailstreams in processing and distribution centers. Each former NDC, all of which were located in buildings owned by USPS, are implementing or in the process of creating individual plans for repurposing the buildings. Many are being restacked into RPDCs, which will form the backbone of the new USPS network, whereas others are being used to insource previously outsourced transportation functions such as surface transfer centers (STCs), or terminal handing services (THS), which handled airmail, in addition to continuing to support processing and distribution centers with the handing of priority and ground advantage parcels.
