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A Canadian postal code (french: code postal) is a six-character string that forms part of a postal
address An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used to give the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using political boundaries and street names as references, along ...
in
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. Like
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
,
Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
and
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
postcodes, Canada's
postal code A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal a ...
s are
alphanumeric Alphanumericals or alphanumeric characters are a combination of alphabetical and numerical characters. More specifically, they are the collection of Latin letters and Arabic digits. An alphanumeric code is an identifier made of alphanumeric c ...
. 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'' from A0A in Newfoundland to Y1A in
Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...
.
Canada Post Canada Post Corporation (french: Société canadienne des postes), trading as Canada Post (french: Postes Canada), is a Crown corporation that functions as the primary postal operator in Canada. Originally known as Royal Mail Canada (the opera ...
provides a postal code look-up tool on its website, via its mobile application, and sells hard-copy directories and CD-ROMs. Many vendors also sell validation tools, which allow customers to properly match addresses and postal codes. Hard-copy directories can also be consulted in all post offices, and some libraries. When writing out the postal address for a location within Canada, the postal code follows the abbreviation for the province or territory.


History


City postal zones

Numbered postal zones were first used in
Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
in 1925. Mail to a Toronto address in zone 5 would be addressed in this format: 37 Bloor Street West Toronto 5, Ontario As of 1943, Toronto was divided into 14 zones, numbered from 1 to 15, except that 7 and 11 were unused, and there was a 2B zone. Postal zones were implemented in
Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
in 1944. By the early 1960s, other cities in Canada had been divided into postal zones, including
Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
,
Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
,
Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749, ...
and
Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
as well as Toronto and Montreal. For example, an address in Vancouver would be addressed as: 804 Robson Street, Vancouver 1, B.C. In the late 1960s, however, the Post Office began implementing a three-digit zone number scheme in major cities to replace existing one- and two-digit zone numbers, starting in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. For example, an address in Metropolitan Toronto would be addressed as: 1253 Bay Street Toronto 185, Ontario''The Canadian Modern Language Review''
Volume 29, Volume 4, Corpus Publishers Services Limited, 1968, page 325
Toronto's renumbering took effect 1 May 1969, accompanied by an advertising campaign under the slogan "Your number is up". However, with impending plans for a national postal code system, Postmaster General
Eric Kierans Eric William Kierans (February 2, 1914 – May 10, 2004) was a Canadian economist and politician. Early life Born in Montreal, Kierans grew up in the working-class Saint-Henri neighbourhood. His father worked at Canadian Car and Foundry, and ...
announced that the Post Office would begin cancelling the new three-digit city zone system. Companies changed their mail addressing at their own expense, only to find the new zoning would prove to be short-lived.


Planning

As the largest Canadian cities grew in the 1950s and 1960s, the volume of mail passing through the country's postal system also grew, to billions of items by the 1950s and tens of billions of items by the mid-1960s. Consequently, it became progressively more difficult for employees who handsorted mail to memorize and keep track of all the individual letter-carrier routes within each city. New technology that allowed mail to be delivered faster also contributed to the pressure for these employees to properly sort the mail. A report tabled in the House of Commons in 1969 dealt with the expected impact of "environmental change" on the Post Office operations over the following 25 years. A key recommendation was the "establishment of a task force to determine the nature of the automation and mechanization the Post Office should adopt, which might include design of a postal code". In December 1969, Communications Minister
Eric Kierans Eric William Kierans (February 2, 1914 – May 10, 2004) was a Canadian economist and politician. Early life Born in Montreal, Kierans grew up in the working-class Saint-Henri neighbourhood. His father worked at Canadian Car and Foundry, and ...
announced that a six-character postal code would be introduced, superseding the three-digit zone system. He later tabled a report in February 1970, entitled "A Canadian Public Address Postal Coding System", submitted by the firm of Samson, Belair, Simpson, Riddell Inc.


Implementation

The introduction of the postal code began with a test in
Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
on 1 April 1971. Coding of Ottawa was followed by a provincial-level rollout of the system in
Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...
, and the system was gradually implemented in the rest of the country from 1972 to 1974, although the nationwide use of the code by the end of 1974 was only 38.2 per cent. The introduction of such a code system allowed Canada Post to easily speed up and simplify the flow of mail in the country, with sorting machines being able to handle 26,640 objects an hour. The
Canadian Union of Postal Workers The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW; french: Syndicat des travailleurs et travailleuses des postes TTP}) is a public-sector trade union representing postal workers including letter carriers, rural and suburban mail carriers, postal clerk ...
objected to the automated sorting system mainly because the wages of those who ran the new automated machines were much lower than those who had hand-sorted mail. The unions ended up staging job action and public information campaigns, with the message that they did not want people and business to use postal codes on their mail. The union declared 20 March 1975 National "Boycott the Postal Code" Day, also demanding a reduction in the work week from 40 to 30 hours. The boycott was called off in February 1976. One 1975 advertisement in the Toronto magazine ''Byliner'' generated controversy by showing a man writing a postal code on the bottom of a thonged woman with the following ditty:
"We're not 'stringing' you along,
Use postal codes – you'll 'thing our 'thong',
Don't be cheeky – you've all got 'em
Please include them on the bottom."''House of Commons Debates''
Official Report, Volume 7, E. Cloutier, Queen's Printer and Controller of Stationery, 1975, page 6826
The advertisement was denounced as "sexist garbage" in the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
by
NDP NDP may stand for: Computing * Neighbor Discovery Protocol, an Internet protocol * Nortel Discovery Protocol, a layer two Internet protocol, also called SONMP * Nondeterministic programming, a type of computer language Government * National ...
MP
John Rodriguez John R. Rodriguez (February 12, 1937 – July 5, 2017) was a Canadian politician. He served as the mayor of Greater Sudbury, Ontario from 2006 to 2010 and previously represented the electoral district of Nickel Belt in the House of Commons of ...
, prompting an apology from
Postmaster General A Postmaster General, in Anglosphere countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, a ministerial office responsible for overseeing all other postmasters. The practice of having a government official responsib ...
Bryce Mackasey Bryce Stuart Mackasey, (August 25, 1921 – September 5, 1999) was a Canadian Member of Parliament, Cabinet minister, and Ambassador to Portugal. Born in Quebec City, Quebec, he was elected as a Liberal candidate in the riding of Verdun i ...
. Canada was one of the last Western countries to implement a nationwide postal code system.


Components of a postal code


Forward sortation areas

A ''forward sortation area'' (FSA) is a geographical region in which all postal codes start with the same three characters. The first letter of an FSA code denotes a particular "postal district", which, outside
Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
and
Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, corresponds to an entire province or territory. The large populations of both Quebec and Ontario cause both provinces to be subdivided into three and five postal districts, respectively, and each has at least one urban area so populous that it has a dedicated postal district ("''H''" for the Montreal region, and "''M''" for
Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
). On the other hand, the low populations in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories (NWT) mean that even after Nunavut separated from the Northwest Territories and became its own territory in 1999, they continue to share a postal district. The digit identifies the FSA as urban or rural. A zero indicates a wide-area rural region (or, in rare instances, a special-purpose code); all other digits indicate urban areas. The second letter represents a specific rural region, an entire medium-sized city, or a section of a major metropolitan area. In the extreme case, some FSAs in downtown
Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
,
Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
, and
Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
are assigned to individual buildings. Rural FSAs also vary widely in population, with the Northwest Territories' ''X0G'' covering only the hamlet of
Fort Liard Fort Liard (Slavey language: ''Echaot'l Koe'' "people from the land of the giants" or ''Acho Dene Kue'') is a hamlet in the Dehcho Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is located north of the British Columbia border. It became acces ...
, but adjoining ''X0E'' covering every other community in the territory except
Yellowknife Yellowknife (; Dogrib: ) is the capital, largest community, and only city in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, about south of the Arctic Circle, on the west side of Yellowknife Bay near the ...
. A directory of FSAs is provided, divided into separate articles by postal district. Individual FSA lists are in a tabular format, with the numbers (known as ''zones'') going across the table and the second letter going down the table. The FSA lists specify all communities covered by each rural FSA. Medium-sized cities may have one dedicated FSA; larger cities have more than one FSA within their limits. For FSAs spanning more than one city, the city which is allocated the most codes in each such FSA is listed. For cities with a small number of FSAs (but more than one), the lists specify the relative location of each FSA in those cities. For cities with a large number of FSAs, applicable neighbourhoods and boroughs are specified.


Table of all postal codes

All Canadian postal codes are listed in the following links, organized by first letter.


Local delivery units

The last three characters denote a ''local delivery unit'' (LDU). An LDU denotes a specific single address or range of addresses, which can correspond to an entire small town, a significant part of a medium-sized town, a single side of a city block in larger cities, a single large building or a portion of a very large one, a single (large) institution such as a university or a hospital, or a business that receives large volumes of mail on a regular basis. LDUs ending in zero correspond to postal facilities, from
post office 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 serv ...
s and small franchised retail postal outlets all the way up to sortation plants. In urban areas, LDUs may be specific postal carriers' routes. In rural areas where direct door-to-door delivery is not available, an LDU can describe a set of post office boxes or a
rural route Rural delivery service refers to services for the delivery of mail to rural areas. In many countries, rural mail delivery follows different rules and practices from that in urban areas. For example, in some areas rural delivery may require homeow ...
. LDU 9Z9 is used exclusively for
Business Reply Mail Freepost is a postal service provided by various postal administrations, whereby a person sends mail without affixing postage, and the recipient pays the postage when collecting the mail. Freepost differs from self-addressed stamped envelopes ...
. In rural FSAs, the first two characters are usually assigned in alphanumerical order by the name of each community. LDU 9Z0 refers to large regional distribution centre facilities, and is also used as a placeholder, appearing in some regional postmarks such as the "K0H 9Z0" which formerly appeared on purely local mail within the
Kingston, Ontario Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located on the north-eastern end of Lake Ontario, at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River (south end of the Rideau Canal). The city is midway between To ...
, area.


Number of possible postal codes

Postal codes use 20
uppercase Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
letters of the
English alphabet The alphabet for Modern English is a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 letters, each having an upper- and lower-case form. The word ''alphabet'' is a compound of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, '' alpha'' and '' beta''. ...
; they do not include the letters D, F, I, O, Q or U. The first position also does not make use of the letters W or Z. This means the maximum number of FSAs available is 18×10×20 = 3,600. With 10×20×10 = 2,000 possible LDUs in each FSA, there is a theoretical limit of 7.2 million postal codes. The practical limit is a bit lower, as Canada Post reserves some FSAs for special functions, such as for test or promotional purposes, (e.g. the H0H 0H0 for Santa Claus, see below) as well as for sorting mail bound for destinations outside Canada. The current Statistics Canada estimate of over 830,000 active postal codes represents about 12% of the entire postal code "space", leaving ample room for expansion. There is less room with regard to FSAs, however. In particular as of 2021, only five FSAs remain unused in British Columbia: V3P, V4H, V4J, V4Y and V8H.


Urbanization

"Urbanization" is the name Canada Post uses to refer to the process where it replaces a rural postal code (a code with a zero as its second character) with urban postal codes. The vacated rural postal code can then be assigned to another community or retired. Canada Post decides when to urbanize a certain community when its population reaches a certain level, though different factors may also be involved. For example, in early 2008, the postal code G0N 3M0 (covering
Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier () is a town in Quebec, Canada, located in the regional county municipality of La Jacques-Cartier, in the administrative region of Capitale-Nationale. The Jacques-Cartier River passes through the city. Lo ...
,
Fossambault-sur-le-Lac Fossambault-sur-le-Lac is a city in the south part of Quebec, Canada, in La Jacques-Cartier Regional County Municipality, just north of Quebec City. It had a population of 2,327 as of the Canada 2021 Census. It is located near Saint-Joseph Lake. ...
and
Lac-Saint-Joseph, Quebec Lac-Saint-Joseph is a town in Quebec, Canada, located on the namesake Saint-Joseph Lake. Demographics In the 2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date o ...
) was urbanized to postal codes beginning with G3N to remove ambiguities and confusions caused by similar street names. Unique among province-wide districts, New Brunswick (postal district E) is completely urbanized, its rural codes having been phased out.


Santa Claus

In 1974, staff at a Canada Post office in
Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
were noticing a considerable number of letters addressed to Santa Claus entering the postal system, and those letters were being treated as undeliverable. Since employees handling those letters did not want the writers (mostly young children) to be disappointed at the lack of response, they started answering the letters themselves. The amount of mail sent to Santa Claus increased every
Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...
, to the point that Canada Post established an official Santa Claus letter-response program in 1983. By 2011, Santa's mail was being handled with the assistance of 11,000 volunteers, mostly current or former postal workers, at multiple locations across Canada devoting an average of twenty-one hours to this seasonal task. Approximately 1,000,000 letters are addressed to Santa Claus each Christmas, including some originating outside Canada, and all of them are answered in the same language in which they are written. Canada Post introduced a special address for mail to Santa Claus, complete with its own postal code: In French, Santa's name translates as "Father Christmas", and mail is addressed to: The postal code H0H 0H0 was chosen for this special seasonal use as it reads "
Ho ho ho Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring children gifts during the late evening and overnight ...
". The H0- prefix is an anomaly: the 0 indicates a rural delivery zone, but H is used to designate
Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
, the second-largest city in Canada. As such, the H0- prefix is almost completely empty. H0M, assigned to the international
Akwesasne The Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne ( ; french: Nation Mohawk à Akwesasne; moh, Ahkwesáhsne) is a Mohawk Nation (''Kanienʼkehá:ka'') territory that straddles the intersection of international (United States and Canada) borders and provincial (Ont ...
tribal reserve on the Canada–US border, is the only other H0- postal code in active use. In 2013, Santa was dragged into the ongoing Arctic sovereignty debate to support Canadian territorial claims extending to the
North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Mag ...
. During a parliamentary debate,
Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
MP
Paul Calandra Paul A. Calandra (born May 13, 1970) is a Canadian politician who has served as a minister in the Ontario provincial cabinet since 2019. Calandra has been the government house leader for the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party since 2019, min ...
accused the opposition
Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...
of "not think ngthat the North Pole or Santa Claus are in Canada". Liberal leader
Justin Trudeau Justin Pierre James Trudeau ( , ; born December 25, 1971) is a Canadian politician who is the 23rd and current prime minister of Canada. He has served as the prime minister of Canada since 2015 and as the leader of the Liberal Party since 2 ...
responded by saying, "Everyone knows that Santa Claus is Canadian. His postal code is H0H 0H0." The Official Opposition New Democratic Party disagreed, insisting that Santa is a "
citizen of the world Global citizenship is the idea that one's identity transcends geography or political borders and that responsibilities or rights are derived from membership in a broader class: "humanity". This does not mean that such a person denounces or waives ...
".


Transition points to the Canadian Forces Postal Service

For transition of mail from the civilian to the Canadian Forces Postal Service, the postal codes of the three military post offices on Canadian soil are used, depending on the final destination. * V9A 7N2 (BC): the Fleet Mail Offices (FMO) in Victoria * B3K 5X5 (NS): FMO in Halifax * K8N 5W6 (ON): the Canadian Forces Post Office (CFPO) in Belleville These postal codes each represent a number of military post offices abroad, which are specified not by postal code but by CFPO or FMO number. The LDUs in this case corresponding not so much to a physical as to a virtual delivery unit since mail is not delivered locally but is forwarded to the actual delivery units at Canadian military bases and ships abroad. In this example, Canada Post will deliver to the CFPO at Belleville and the Canadian Forces Postal System will continue transport to the addressee at CFPO 5053 (in Geilenkirchen, Germany) by whatever means and timing the military will deem appropriate.


Alternative uses

Postal codes can be correlated with databased information from censuses or health registries to create a geographic profile of an area's population. For instance, postal codes have been used to compare children's risk of developing cancer. As Canadian electoral districts frequently follow postal code areas, citizens can identify their local elected representative using their postal code. Provincial and federal government websites offer an online "look-up" feature based on postal codes. Although A1A 1A1 is sometimes displayed as a generic code for this purpose, it is actually a genuine postal code in use in the Lower
Battery Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...
, St. John's Harbour, Newfoundland. Another common "example" code in Canada Post materials, K1A 0B1, is the valid code for the Canada Post headquarters building in
Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
.


See also

* Canadian postal abbreviations for provinces and territories *
Geocoding Address geocoding, or simply geocoding, is the process of taking a text-based description of a location, such as an address or the name of a place, and returning geographic coordinates, frequently latitude/longitude pair, to identify a locatio ...
* List of postal codes in Canada * ISO 3166-2:CA


References


External links


Canada Post
*
Precision Targeter: includes householder Counts and Maps
*
National Presortation Schematic
Includes monthly bulletin detailing postal code changes *
Postal Code Lookup



Postal Districts as of 1925

Addressing Solutions
United Nations - United Postal Union (UPU) {{DEFAULTSORT:Canadian Postal Code 1925 introductions Canada Post
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...