Surface mail, also known as sea mail, is mail that is transported by land and sea (along the surface of the Earth), rather than by air, as in airmail. Surface mail is significantly less expensive but slower than airmail, and thus is preferred for large or heavy, non-urgent items and is primarily used for sending packages, not letters.
The term "surface mail" arose as a retronym (retrospective term), following the development of airmail – a term was needed to describe traditional mail, for which purpose "surface mail" was coined. A more recent example of the same process is the term snail mail (to refer to physical mail, be it transported by surface or air), following the development of email. [1]
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2016) |
The Israel Postal Company (Hebrew : דואר ישראל, romanized: Do'ar Yisra'el) offers international surface mail (known as "sea and land mail", (Hebrew : דואר ים ויבשה, romanized: Do'ar Yam v'Yabasha). [2]
In 2007, the US Postal Service discontinued its outbound international surface mail ("sea mail") service, [3] mainly because of increased costs. Returned undeliverable surface parcels had become an expensive problem for the USPS, since it was often required to take such parcels back. [4]
Domestic surface mail (now "Retail Ground" or "Commercial Parcel Select") remains available.
Alternatives to international surface mail include:
Senders can access the International Surface Air Lift and ePacket services through postal wholesalers. Some examples of such wholesalers include:
If a sender sends an ISAL mailing directly through the USPS (without a wholesaler as an intermediary), the minimum weight is 50 pounds per mailing. [7] ePacket mailings can never be sent directly through the USPS; senders must always use a wholesaler.
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.
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal systems have generally been established as a government monopoly, with a fee on the article prepaid. Proof of payment is usually in the form of an adhesive postage stamp, but a postage meter is also used for bulk mailing.
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.
China Post, officially the China Post Group Corporation, is the national postal service corporation of the People's Republic of China. It is incorporated as a state-owned enterprise.
Airmail is a mail transport service branded and sold on the basis of at least one leg of its journey being by air. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly than surface mail, and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be the only option for sending mail to some destinations, such as overseas, if the mail cannot wait the time it would take to arrive by ship, sometimes weeks. The Universal Postal Union adopted comprehensive rules for airmail at its 1929 Postal Union Congress in London. Since the official language of the Universal Postal Union is French, airmail items worldwide are often marked Par avion, literally: "by airplane".
An airmail etiquette, often shortened to just etiquette, is a label used to indicate that a letter is to be sent by airmail.
Dead letter mail or undeliverable mail is mail that cannot be delivered to the addressee or returned to the sender. This is usually due to lack of compliance with postal regulations, an incomplete address and return address, or the inability to forward the mail when both correspondents move before the letter can be delivered. Largely based on the British model that emerged in the late eighteenth century, many countries developed similar systems for processing undeliverable mail.
Registered mail is a postal service in many countries which allows the sender proof of mailing via a receipt and, upon request, electronic verification that an article was delivered or that a delivery attempt was made. Depending on the country, additional services may also be available, such as:
Poste restante, also known as general delivery in North American English, is a service where the post office holds the mail until the recipient calls for it. It is a common destination for mail for people who are visiting a particular location and have no need, or no way, of having mail delivered directly to their place of residence at that time.
The system for mail delivery in the United States has developed with the nation. Rates were based on the distance between sender and receiver in the nation's early years. In the middle of the 19th century, rates stabilized at one price regardless of distance. Rates were relatively unchanged until 1968 when the price was increased every few years by a small amount. Comparing the increases with a price index, the cost of a first-class stamp has been steady. The seal of the Post Office Department showed a man on a running horse, even as railroads and, later, motorized trucks and airplanes moved mail. In 1971, the Post Office became the United States Postal Service, with rates set by the Postal Regulatory Commission, with some oversight by Congress. Air mail became standard in 1975. In the 21st century, prices were segmented to match the sorting machinery used; non-standard letters required slightly higher postage.
Generally, packet trade is any regularly scheduled cargo, passenger and mail trade conducted by boat or ship. The boats or ships are called "packet boats or packet ships" as their original function was to carry mail.
Military mail, as opposed to civilian mail, refers to the postal services provided by armed forces that allow serving members to send and receive mail. Military mail systems are often subsidized to ensure that military mail does not cost the sender any more than normal domestic mail. In some cases, military personnel in a combat zone may post letters and packages to their home country free of charge. Modern military mail services are provided by most armed forces around the world. In some nations, individual service branches may run their own military mail program.
Parcel post is a postal service for mail that is too heavy for normal letter post. It is usually slower than letter post. The development of the parcel post is closely connected with the development of the railway network which enabled parcels to be carried in bulk, to a regular schedule, and at economical prices. Today, many parcels also travel by road and international shipments may travel by sea or airmail.
U.S. Special Delivery was a postal service paid for with additional postage for urgent letters and postal packets which are delivered in less time than by standard or first class mail service. Its meaning is different and separate from express mail delivery service. Essentially it meant that a postal packet was delivered from a post office to the addressee immediately once it arrived at the post office responsible for delivering it, rather than waiting for the next regular delivery to the addressee.
Surface Air Lifted (SAL) is a postal service used to send international mail items. Thirty-nine postal authorities provide this service. It is a cost-effective international mail. At first SAL mail is processed and transported by surface in the origin country. Then it is transported by air to the destination country and finally processed and delivered as standard-type mail by the destination postal administration. The service is faster than surface mail while the cost is lower than air mail. SAL is more economical for sending heavy items; with light items, it sometimes costs more than air mail.
The Israel Postal Company, formerly called the Israel Postal Authority and currently doing business as Israel Post, is a government-owned corporation that provides postal services in Israel.
A Nixie is a name given by the United States Postal Service to a piece of mail which is undeliverable as addressed. It is derived from "nix", English slang for the German nichts ("nothing"), and "-ie", an item or a thing.
Package tracking or package logging is the process of localizing shipping containers, mail and parcel post at different points of time during sorting, warehousing, and package delivery to verify their provenance and to predict and aid delivery.
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.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) provides Priority Mail Express for domestic U.S. delivery, and offers two types of international Express Mail services, although only one of them is part of the EMS standard. One is called Priority Mail Express International and the other service is called Global Express Guaranteed (GXG). The latter has no relation to "EMS" International service as provided by the EMS Cooperative.
Internal newsletters detailed a huge loss for the USPS in the failed delivery of packages sent from the USA via surface. Since the USPS cannot dictate how scores of different countries handle surface mail, and since its agreements required the USPS to take back undeliverable parcels, the losses were mounting.
The reason, probably, why no other dealers offer it: ... it is very difficult and time-consuming to do. Plus, there is no tracking, no insurance, and lots of complaints — as those packages can easily take 60 days to arrive.
| History |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Components | ||
| Delivery | ||
| Staff | ||
| Processing | ||
Institutions and systems | ||
| Related | ||
| List of entities that have issued postage stamps | ||
