![AustralianEnvelopePostcode](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/AustralianEnvelopePostcode.JPG)
Postcodes in Australia are used to more efficiently sort and route
mail
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...
within the Australian postal system.
Postcodes
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 ...
in Australia have four digits and are placed at the end of the Australian address, before the country. Postcodes were introduced in Australia in 1967 by the
Postmaster-General's Department and are now managed by
Australia Post
Australia Post, formally the Australian Postal Corporation, is the government business enterprise that provides postal services in Australia. The head office of Australia Post is located in Bourke Street, Melbourne, which also serves as a post o ...
, Australia's national postal service. Postcodes are published in booklets available 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 or online from the Australia Post website.
Australian envelopes and postcards often have four square boxes printed in orange at the bottom right for the postcode. These are used to assist with the automated sorting of mail that has been addressed by hand for Australian delivery.
History
Postcodes were introduced in Australia in 1967 by the
Postmaster-General's Department (PMG) to replace earlier postal sorting systems, such as
Melbourne's letter and number codes (e.g., ''N3'', ''E5'') and a similar system then used in rural and regional
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
. The introduction of the postcodes coincided with the introduction of a large-scale mechanical mail sorting system in Australia,
starting with the
Sydney GPO.
By 1968, 75% of mail was using postcodes, and in the same year post office preferred-size envelopes were introduced,
[ which came to be referred to as “standard envelopes”.
Postcode squares were introduced in June 1990] to enable Australia Post to use optical character recognition
Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scen ...
(OCR) software in its mail sorting machines to automatically and more quickly sort mail by postcodes.
Format
Australian postcodes consist of four digits, and are written after the name of the city, suburb, or town, and the state or territory:
Recipient Name
100 Citizen Road
BLACKTOWN NSW 2148
When writing an address by hand, and a row of four boxes is pre-printed on the lower right-hand corner of an envelope, the postcode may be written in the boxes instead. When posting to an organisation, business names can be written instead of a recipient name. If an article is intended for a specific identity within an organisation, their identity can be prepended on the line above the business name, with c/- prepended to the business name.
If addressing a letter from outside Australia, the postcode is recorded before 'Australia', which is placed on a fourth line.
Geography
Australian postcodes are sorting information. They are often linked with one area (e.g. 6160 belongs only to Fremantle, Western Australia
Fremantle () () is a port city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australian vernacular diminutive for ...
). Due to postcode rationalisation, they can be quite complex, especially in country areas (e.g. 2570 belongs to twenty-two towns and suburbs around Camden, New South Wales). The south-western Victoria 3221 postcode of the Geelong
Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...
Mail Centre also includes twenty places around Geelong with very few people. This means that mail for these places is not fully sorted until it gets to Geelong. Some postcodes cover large populations (e.g., postcode 4350 serving some 100,000 people in Toowoomba and the surrounding area), while other postcodes have much smaller populations, even in urban areas. Australian postcodes range from 0200 for the Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...
(now 2601) to 9944 for Cannonvale
Cannonvale is a coastal locality in the Whitsunday Region, Queensland, Australia. In the Cannonvale had a population of 5,716 people.
Geography
Pioneer Bay (part of the Coral Sea, ) forms the northern boundary of the locality. Pigeon Island ...
, Queensland.
Some towns and suburbs have two postcodes — one for street deliveries and another for post office box
A post office box (commonly abbreviated as P.O. box, or also known as a postal box) is a uniquely addressable lockable box located on the premises of a post office.
In some regions, particularly in Africa, there is no door to door delivery ...
es. For example, a street address in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta would be written like this:
:Mr John Smith
:99 George Street
:PARRAMATTA NSW 2150
But mail sent to a PO Box in Parramatta would be addressed:
:Mr John Smith
:PO Box 99
:PARRAMATTA NSW 2124
Many large businesses, government departments and other institutions receiving high volumes of mail had their own postcode as a ''Large Volume Receiver'' (LVR), e.g. the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital
The Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital (RBWH) is a tertiary public hospital located in Herston, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is operated by Metro North Health, part of the Queensland Health network. The hospital has 929 bed ...
has the postcode 4029, the Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...
had the postcode 0200. More postcode ranges were made available for LVRs in the 1990s. Australia Post has been progressively discontinuing the LVR programme since 2006.
Places without postcodes
Some places in Australia do not have postcodes. These are typically remote areas with little or no population.
Allocation
Australian states and territories
The first one or two numerals usually show the state or territory that the postcode belongs to
Sometimes near the state and territory borders, Australia Post finds it easier to send mail through a nearby post office that is across the border:
Some of the postcodes above may cover two or more states. For example, postcode 2620 covers both a locality in NSW (''Gundaroo'') as well as a locality in the ACT (''Hume''), and postcode 0872 covers a number of localities across WA, SA and NT.
Three locations (Mingoola, Mungindi and Texas) straddle the NSW-Queensland border (so same town name and postcode on both sides).
Jervis Bay Territory, once an exclave
An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...
of the ACT but now a separate territory, is geographically located on the coast of NSW. It is just south of the towns of Vincentia and Huskisson, with which it shares a postcode. Mail to the Jervis Bay Territory is still addressed to the ACT.
The numerals used to show the state on each radio callsign in Australia are the same numeral as the first numeral for postcodes in that state, e.g. ''2xx'' in New South Wales, ''3xx'' in Victoria, etc. Radio callsigns pre-date postcodes in Australia by more than forty years.
External territories
Australia's external territories are also included in Australia Post's postcode system. While these territories do not belong to any state, they are addressed as such for mail sorting:
Three scientific bases in Antarctica operated by the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions
The Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE ) is the historical name for the Australian Antarctic Program (AAp) administered for Australia by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).
History
Australia has had a long involv ...
share a postcode with the isolated sub-Antarctic island of Macquarie Island (part of Tasmania):
There is also a "special" postcode for routing mail sent to Santa:
State and territory capital cities
Each state's capital city ends with three zeroes, while territorial capital cities end with two zeroes. Capital city postcodes were the lowest postcodes in their state or territory range, before new ranges for LVRs and PO Boxes were made available. The last numeral can usually be changed from "0" to "1" to get the postcode for General Post Office
The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...
boxes in any capital city (though Perth now uses a different range of postcodes for its GPO Boxes):
Allocation within states
While the first numeral of a postcode usually shows the state or territory, the second numeral usually shows a region within the state. However, postcodes with the same second numeral are not always next to each other. As an example, postcodes in the range 2200–2299 are split between the southern suburbs of Sydney and the Central Coast, Lake Macquarie
The City of Lake Macquarie is a Local government in Australia, local government area in Greater Newcastle and part of the Hunter Region in New South Wales, Australia. It was proclaimed a city from 7 September 1984. The area is situated adjacent ...
and Newcastle regions of New South Wales.
Postcodes with a second numeral of "0" or "1" are almost always located within the metropolitan area of the state's capital city. Postcodes with higher second numerals are usually located in rural and regional areas. Common exceptions are where towns were rural when postcodes were first introduced in 1967, but have since been suburbanised and incorporated into metropolitan areas, e.g. Penrith, New South Wales
Penrith is a city in New South Wales, Australia, located in Greater Western Sydney, 55 kilometres (31 mi) west of the Sydney central business district on the banks of the Nepean River, on the outskirts of the Cumberland Plain. Its elevati ...
has the postcode 2750 and Petrie, Queensland
Petrie is a suburb in the Moreton Bay Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , Petrie had a population of 8,674 people.
Geography
The southern boundary of the suburb is marked by the North Pine River.
Petrie is a suburban village with new hou ...
has the postcode 4502.
Within each region with the same second numeral, postcodes are usually allocated in ascending order the further one travels from the state's capital city along major highways and railways. For instance, heading north on the North Coast railway in New South Wales away from Sydney:
Major towns and cities
Major towns and cities tend to have "0" as the last numeral or last two numerals, e.g. Rockhampton, Queensland
Rockhampton is a city in the Rockhampton Region of Central Queensland, Australia. The population of Rockhampton in June 2021 was 79,967, Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018. making it the fourth-largest city in the state outside of the ...
has the postcode 4700 and Ballarat, Victoria
Ballarat ( ) is a city in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 Census, Ballarat had a population of 116,201, making it the third largest city in Victoria. Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018.
Within months of Vic ...
has the postcode 3350. There are exceptions; the major town of Ipswich, Queensland
Ipswich () is a city in South East Queensland, Australia. Situated on the Bremer River, it is approximately west of the Brisbane central business district. The city is renowned for its architectural, natural and cultural heritage. Ipswich pre ...
has the postcode 4305, while Goodna
Goodna is a suburb on the eastern edge of the City of Ipswich in Queensland, Australia. In the , Goodna had a population of 10,461 people.
Geography
Goodna is from the Brisbane central business district, being just outside the Brisbane City C ...
, a relatively small suburb of Ipswich, is allocated 4300.
Postcode squares
Australia Post prefers envelopes sold in Australia to have four boxes in the bottom right corner of the front of the envelope. Entering the postcode in these boxes or squares, which Australia Post calls ''postcode squares'', enables Australia Post to use optical character recognition
Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scen ...
software in its mail sorting machines to automatically and more quickly sort mail into postcodes, which also embeds routing information. Postcode squares were introduced in June 1990.
Australia Post says that postcode squares should not be used for machine-addressed mail, or mail going overseas.
Other uses
Many other organisations now use postcodes. Insurance
Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...
companies often use postcodes when working out the cost of car and house insurance. Transport for NSW
Transport for NSW, sometimes abbreviated to TfNSW, and pronounced as Transport for New South Wales, is an agency of the New South Wales Government established on 1 November 2011, and is the leading transport and roads agency in New South Wales, ...
uses postcodes to give specific numbers for each bus stop in Greater Sydney. The stop number is five to seven numbers: the first four are the postcode, and the others show the bus stop (sometimes written with a space in between, e.g. "2000 108").
Many companies that produce metropolitan street maps also list the postcodes for each suburb, both in indexes and on the maps themselves. Spatial representation of postcodes is also very popular in defining sales and franchise territories.
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Taxation Office and many other Federal and State government organisations publish a variety of statistics by postcode which extends the use Australia Post four digit code to many business and social planning related activities.
There is an inherent problem with spatial representation of postcodes since areas referenced to a specific postal code tend to change over time, as new postcodes are added or existing ones are split by Australia Post for operational purposes.
Some mail generating software can automatically sort outward mail by postcode before it is generated. This pre-sort of mail into postcode order eliminates the need for it to be sorted manually or using mail sorting machines.
Mechanised sorting
To improve mechanised sorting, each address now has a sorting number which is printed on the letter as an orange-coloured barcode. This number might be 12 digits long. This system enables the post office to place items in delivery order. Companies can also use Rapid Addressing Tool (RATS) to print Customer Addressed Barcodes, which are printed above the address. Every Delivery Point in Australia (DPID) has its own number. Barcode sorter machines sort and sequence letters up to C5 size. Flat multi-level OCR reads, imprints and sorts C5 to A3 sized articles.
See also
* Postcodes in the United Kingdom
Postal codes used in the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies are known as postcodes (originally, postal codes). They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been dev ...
- the United Kingdom equivalent
* Postal codes in New Zealand - the equivalent in New Zealand
* ZIP code - the United States equivalent
References
External links
Postcodes Australia
- Australia Post's postcode search
Australian Bureau of Statistics data related to postcodes
Public domain database (XLS,CSV,XML,JSON) of Australia postcodes and geographical data
{{DEFAULTSORT:Postcodes In Australia
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
Postal history of Australia