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 ...

introduced

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 numerical digit, digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, inclu ...

s on 25 July 1941, in the form of a two-digit system that was applied initially for the parcel service and later for all mail deliveries. This system was replaced in 1962 in

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

by a four-digit system; three years later

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

followed with its own four-digit system. Whereas the Federal Republic introduced a system with space left for the East German postal system after a possible reunification, such as by omitting all codes starting with '1' (except 1000 for

West Berlin West Berlin ( or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin from 1948 until 1990, during the Cold War. Although West Berlin lacked any sovereignty and was under military occupation until German reunification in 1 ...

) and '9', the German Democratic Republic had a system that used all codes starting from '1' to '9' just for East Germany. Today, German postal codes are numeric and have consisted of five digits since 1993. Between 1990 and 1993 the previous four-digit codes in the former West were prefixed with the letter "W", and in the former East with the letter "O" (for "Ost", "east" in German). Even though the western system had kept some number ranges free, specifically for later integration of the East in case of reunification, it was decided that the time was right to create an entirely new system for the 1990s, in which larger towns and cities would be divided into multiple postal code areas (the old system had inconsistently used additional numbers after the city's names), and companies receiving large amounts of post (such as mail-order businesses) could be assigned their own private code. This resulted in a system where one could no longer identify the size of the city by the number of trailing zeros in its postal code (such as 2000 for Hamburg or 8000 for Munich). Post office boxes are arranged in racks containing several dozens of them. Each rack is identified by an individual postal code. The 1993 system has geographic zones on the first (Postleitzonen) and on the second level (Postleitregion), e.g., 1 is North East Germany, and 10 is a zone in the inner city of

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. On 31 December 2007, the zones had the following area and population: There are three states (Saxony, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein), in addition to the city states (Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg), that lie completely within one postal zone, while three states (Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Baden-Württemberg) cover four postal zones.

History of postal code systems in Germany

Precursors

With the help of ring number stamps, the administration of the Thurn-und-Taxis-Post made it possible for the first time in 1853 to recognize places from a region by a range of numbers. From number 338, assigned on 1 October 1854 to the post office in Lehesten, the numbers are randomly assigned. In 1917, Carl Bobe divided Germany into metropolitan areas, regional areas and local areas in an organizational scheme.

References

External links

Find town or P.O. box by postal code and in reverse order
{{Portal bar, Writing, Geography, Germany

Postal system of Germany

History of postal code systems in Germany

Precursors

See also

References

External links