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A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and
parcels Parcels are an Australian electropop five-piece formed in Byron Bay, Australia, in 2014. Today they are based in Berlin, Germany. The band's line-up is composed of keyboardist Louie Swain, keyboardist/guitarist Patrick Hetherington, bassist Noa ...
, providing
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, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional services, which vary by country. These include providing and accepting government forms (such as
passport A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that contains a person's identity. A person with a passport can travel to and from foreign countries more easily and access consular assistance. A passport certifies the personal ...
applications), and processing government services and fees (such as road tax,
postal savings Postal savings systems provide depositors who do not have access to banks a safe and convenient method to save money. Many nations have operated banking systems involving post offices to promote saving money among the poor. History In 1861, G ...
, or bank fees). The
chief administrator The head of government is the highest or the second-highest official in the executive branch of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, or other government who often presides over a cabinet, a gro ...
of a post office is called a
postmaster A postmaster is the head of an individual post office, responsible for all postal activities in a specific post office. When a postmaster is responsible for an entire mail distribution organization (usually sponsored by a national government), ...
. Before the advent of postal codes and the post office, postal systems would route items to a specific post office for receipt or delivery. During the 19th century in the United States, this often led to smaller communities being renamed after their post offices, particularly after the
Post Office Department The United States Post Office Department (USPOD; also known as the Post Office or U.S. Mail) was the predecessor of the United States Postal Service, in the form of a Cabinet department, officially from 1872 to 1971. It was headed by the postmas ...
began to require that post office names not be duplicated within a state.


Name

The term "post-office" has been in use since the 1650s, shortly after the legalisation of private mail services in England in 1635. In early modern England, post ridersmounted couriers—were placed, or "posted", every few hours along post roads at posting houses (also known as post houses) between major cities, or " post towns". These
stable A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals and livestock. There are many different types of stables in use today; the ...
s or inns permitted important correspondence to travel without delay. In early America, post offices were also known as stations. This term, as well as the term "post house", fell from use as horse and
coach Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Co ...
services were replaced by
railways Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
, aircraft, and
automobiles A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as ...
. Today, the term "post office" usually refers to government postal facilities providing customer service. "
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. ...
" is sometimes used for the national headquarters of a postal service, even if the building does not provide customer service. A postal facility that is used exclusively for processing mail is instead known as a sorting office or delivery office, which may have a large central area known as a sorting or postal hall. Integrated facilities combining mail processing with railway stations or airports are known as mail exchanges. In India, post offices are found in almost every village having panchayat (a "village council"), towns, cities, and throughout the geographical area of India. India's postal system changed its name to India Post after the advent of private courier companies in the 1990s. It is run by the Indian government's Department of Posts. India Post accepts and delivers inland letters, postcards, parcels, postal stamps, and money orders (money transfers). Few post offices in India offer speed post (fast delivery) and payments or bank savings services. It is also uncommon for Indian post offices to sell insurance policies or accept payment for electricity, landline telephone, or gas bills. Until the 1990s, post offices would collect fees for radio licenses, recruitment for government jobs, and the operation of public call telephone (PCO) booths. Postmen would deliver letters, money orders, and parcels to places that are within the assigned area of a particular post office but there are no post offices in the location. Each Indian post office is assigned a unique six-digit code called the Postal Index Number, or PIN. Each post office is identified by its PIN. Private courier and delivery services often have offices as well, although these are usually not called "post offices", except in the case of Germany, which has fully privatised its national postal system. As abbreviation ''PO'' is used, together with ''GPO'' for General Post Office and ''LPO'' for Licensed Post Office.


History

There is evidence of corps of royal couriers disseminating the decrees of
Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
pharaohs as early as 2400BCE, and it is possible that the service greatly precedes that date. Similarly, there may be ancient organised systems of post houses providing mounted courier service, although sources vary as to precisely who initiated the practice. In the
Persian Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...
, a
Chapar Khaneh ''Chapar Khaneh'' ( fa, چاپارخانه, , ) is the Persian-language term that refers to the postal service system used throughout the Achaemenid Empire. It was created by Cyrus the Great and later developed by Darius the Great as the royal me ...
system existed along the Royal Road. Similar postage systems were established in India and
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
by the Mauryan and
Han Han may refer to: Ethnic groups * Han Chinese, or Han People (): the name for the largest ethnic group in China, which also constitutes the world's largest ethnic group. ** Han Taiwanese (): the name for the ethnic group of the Taiwanese p ...
dynasties in the 2nd century BCE. The Roman historian
Suetonius Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...
credited Augustus with regularising the Roman transportation and courier network, the '' Cursus Publicus''. Local officials were obliged to provide couriers who would be responsible for their message's entire course. Locally maintained post houses ( la, ) privately owned rest houses ( la, ) and were obliged or honored to care for couriers along their way. The Roman emperor
Diocletian Diocletian (; la, Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, grc, Διοκλητιανός, Diokletianós; c. 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed ''Iovius'', was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Gaius Valerius Diocles ...
later established two parallel systems: one providing fresh horses or mules for urgent correspondence and the other providing sturdy oxen for bulk shipments. The Byzantine historian Procopius, though not unbiased, records the ''Cursus Publicus'' system remained largely intact until it was dismantled in the Byzantine empire by the emperor Justinian in the 6th century. The
Princely House of Thurn and Taxis The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis (german: link=no, Fürstenhaus Thurn und Taxis ) is a family of German nobility that is part of the ''Briefadel''. It was a key player in the postal services in Europe during the 16th century, until the end ...
family initiated regular mail service from Brussels in the
16th century The 16th century begins with the Julian year 1501 ( MDI) and ends with either the Julian or the Gregorian year 1600 ( MDC) (depending on the reckoning used; the Gregorian calendar introduced a lapse of 10 days in October 1582). The 16th cent ...
, directing the Imperial Post of the Holy Roman Empire. The British Postal Museum claims that the oldest functioning post office in the world is on High Street in Sanquhar, Scotland. The post office has functioned continuously since 1712, during which horses and stagecoaches were used to carry mail. In parts of Europe, special postal censorship offices existed to intercept and censor mail. In France, such offices were known as cabinets noirs.


Unstaffed postal facilities

In many jurisdictions, mailboxes and
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 have long been in widespread use for drop-off and pickup (respectively) of mail and small packages outside post offices or when offices are closed. Germany's national postage system Deutsche Post introduced the Pack-Station for package delivery, including both drop-off and pickup, in 2001. In the 2000s, the United States Postal Service began to install Automated Postal Centers (APCs) in many locations in both post offices, for when they are closed or busy, and retail locations. APCs can print postage and accept mail and small packages.


Notable post offices


Operational

*
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. ...
, state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969 *
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. ...
in Dublin (inaugurated 1818), headquarters of the Irish post and headquarters of the 1916 Easter Uprising *
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. ...
(1864), erected on the site of the
Black Hole of Calcutta The Black Hole of Calcutta was a dungeon in Fort William, Calcutta, measuring , in which troops of Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, held British prisoners of war on the night of 20 June 1756. John Zephaniah Holwell, one of the British p ...
*
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. ...
(1874) in Chennai, India *
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. ...
(1887) in Lahore, Pakistan *
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. ...
(1895), the headquarters of the
Sri Lankan Post The Department of Posts, functioning under the brand name Sri Lanka Post ( Sinhala: ශ්‍රී ලංකා තැපැල් ''Shri Lanka Tæpæl''), is a government operated postal system in Sri Lanka. The postal headquarters is the Genera ...
*
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. ...
(1903), headquarters of the Croatian post *
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. ...
(1976), the headquarters of
Hongkong Post Hongkong Post is a government department of Hong Kong responsible for postal services, though operated as a trading fund. Founded in 1841, it was known as ''Postal Department'' or ''Post Office'' () before the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. ...
*
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. ...
(1913), the main post office of Mumbai, India, and one of the world's largest (120,000 sq ft or 11,000 m2) * General Post Office Building (1922), former headquarters of the Chunghwa Post and present home of the Shanghai Postal Museum * Central Post Office (1939), also temporary home to the Privy Council of Canada *
Manila Central Post Office The Manila Central Post Office, often called the Post Office Building, is the main postal office of Manila, which also serves as the home of the Philippine Postal Corporation. It also houses the main mail sorting-distribution operations of the Phi ...
(1926, rebuilt after WWII) *
James Farley Post Office The James A. Farley Building is a mixed-use structure in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, which formerly served as the city's main United States Postal Service (USPS) branch. Designed by McKim, Mead & White in the Beaux-Arts style, the structur ...
(1912), America's largest operating post office, the main office for New York City. Bears the famous translation of Herodotus's description of the Persian postal system along its front facade: '' "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds"'' * The Edificio Central de Correos y Telégrafos building (1917), San José, Costa Rica. Contains the Costa Rican Philatelic Museum on the second floor * Polish Post Office, a scene of intense fighting during the 1939 Nazi Germany invasion of Danzig *
Taipei Post Office Taipei Post Office (; Minnan: ''Tâi-pak Iû-kiȯk'') or Taipei Beimen Post Office (; Minnan: ''Tâi-pak Pak-bûn Iû-kiȯk'') is a four-story building located close to Beimen (lit. "North Gate") in Zhongzheng District, Taipei, Taiwan. T ...
(1928), the headquarters of
Taiwan Post Chunghwa Post Co., Ltd. is the official postal service of Taiwan (officially the Republic of China). Chunghwa Post was a government agency of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications until 2003, when it was reorganized into a gover ...
*
First Toronto Post Office Toronto's First Post Office (also known as the Fourth York Post Office National Historic Site of Canada) is a historic post office in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the oldest purpose-built post office in Canada that functioned as a department of ...
(1833) * Istanbul Main Post Office (1905), home of the Istanbul Postal Museum


Former

*
Bandinelli Palace Bandinelli Palace ( it, Palazzo Bandinelli; uk, Палац Бандінеллі; pl, Kamienica Bandinellich we Lwowie) is a late Renaissance townhouse (kamienica (architecture), kamienica) facing Market Square (Lviv), Market Square in Lviv, Ukra ...
(1589), a former post office in Lviv in Ukraine * General Post Office (Washington, D.C.) (1842), the city's first "all-marble" building, patterned after Rome's Temple of Jupiter and now a 4-star hotel,
Hotel Monaco The Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, LLC is a San Francisco, California, based hotel and restaurant brand owned by IHG Hotels & Resorts (IHG) since 2015. Founded in 1981 by Bill Kimpton and led by Chief Executive Officer Mike DeFrino, the group ...
* Chief Post Office (1877), the former chief post office of New Zealand in Christchurch * Central Post Office Building (1903), home of the
Government of Sweden The Government of the Kingdom of Sweden ( sv, Konungariket Sveriges regering) is the national cabinet of Sweden, and the country's executive authority. The Government consists of the Prime Ministerappointed and dismissed by the Speaker of the ...
*
Buenos Aires Central Post Office The Buenos Aires Central Post Office (native name: "Palacio de Correos y Telecomunicaciones" or most commonly, "Correo Central") building, now the Kirchner Cultural Centre, was the seat of the ''Correo Argentino'' (Argentine Post Office Department ...
(1908), now the Bicentennial Cultural Center * The Fullerton (1919), a 5-star hotel in Singapore * Old Main Post Office (1921), an enormous abandoned structure in Chicago * ''
Palazzo Delle Poste A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...
'' (1928), the former post office of Naples, Italy, heavily damaged during Naples' 1943 uprising against the Nazis


Historic

* The
General Post Office East The General Post Office in St. Martin's Le Grand (later known as GPO East) was the main post office for London between 1829 and 1910, the headquarters of the General Post Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and England's ...
(1825), former headquarters of the
GPO GPO may refer to: Government and politics * General Post Office, Dublin * General Post Office, in Britain * Social Security Government Pension Offset, a provision reducing benefits * Government Pharmaceutical Organization, a Thai state enterpris ...
in London, demolished in 1912


See also

* Postage stamp * Dak bungalows, the former posthouses of the British Raj * Freepost (also known as ''Business Reply Mail'') *" Going postal" * Mail * Military mail * Old U.S. Post Offices *
Penny Post The Penny Post is any one of several postal systems in which normal letters could be sent for one penny. Five such schemes existed in the United Kingdom while the United States initiated at least three such simple fixed rate postal arrangements. Un ...
*
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 ...
* Postal administration * Postal code, ZIP code *
History of United States postage rates 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 early years of the nation. In the middle of the 19th century, rates stabilized to one price reg ...
* Poste restante (also known as General Delivery) * Universal Postal Union * Wanted poster (Post Office Wall)


References


External links


Photos of post offices around the world

Royal Mail

The British Postal Museum & Archive

United Kingdom Post Office site

United States Postal Service

Universal Postal Union
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