A sorting office or processing and distribution center (P&DC; name used by the

United States Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the executive branch of the federal governmen ...

(USPS)) is any location where postal operators bring

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 ...

after collection for sorting into batches for delivery to the addressee, which may be a direct delivery or sent onwards to another regional or local sorting office, or to another postal administration. Most countries have many sorting offices; the USPS has about 275. Some small territories such as

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...

have only one. Sorting vans were used at various times; the UK had sorting vans, or carriages, in their

Travelling Post Office A Travelling Post Office (TPO) was a type of mail train used in Great Britain and Republic of Ireland, Ireland where the post was sorted en route, used from 1830 to 1996, with non-TPO mail trains ending in 2024. The TPO can be traced back to ...

s but those services were terminated in 2004. while in the USA the Railway Mail Service used a

Railway post office In Canada and the United States, a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service and used specifically for staff to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO w ...

for sorting the mail. As of 2017,

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

has about 95–98 sorting offices across the country. The

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Royal Mail Royal Mail Group Limited, trading as Royal Mail, is a British postal service and courier company. It is owned by International Distribution Services. It operates the brands Royal Mail (letters and parcels) and Parcelforce Worldwide (parcels) ...

's Mount Pleasant Sorting Office was the world's largest sorting office at the beginning of the 20th century but is now only the largest one in London. Military mail systems, such as the British Forces Post Office and U.S. Military Postal Service, have their own dedicated sorting offices.

References

Postal infrastructure {{Postal-stub

See also

References