POSTCODES of the UK
(selected foreign postcodes at end)
· UK list
· Canada
· Links to other countries' codes and other sites
|
AB |
Aberdeen |
|
AL |
St Albans |
|
B |
Birmingham |
|
BA |
Bath |
|
BB |
Blackburn |
|
BD |
Bradford |
|
BH |
Bournemouth |
|
BL |
Bolton |
|
BN |
Brighton |
|
BR |
Bromley |
|
BS |
Bristol |
|
BT |
Belfast |
|
CA |
Carlisle |
|
CB |
Cambridge |
|
CF |
Cardiff |
|
CH |
Chester |
|
CM |
Chelmsford |
|
CO |
Colchester |
|
CR |
Croydon |
|
CT |
Canterbury |
|
CV |
Coventry |
|
CW |
Crewe |
|
DA |
Dartford |
|
DB |
Dublin
[for keying in at the postcode reading desks, not used by the public] |
|
DD |
Dundee |
|
DE |
Derby |
|
DG |
Dumfries (Dumfries and Galloway) |
|
DH |
Durham |
|
DL |
Darlington |
|
DN |
Doncaster |
|
DT |
Dorchester |
|
DY |
Dudley |
|
E |
London East |
|
EC |
London East Central |
|
EH |
Edinburgh |
|
EN |
Enfield |
|
EX |
Exeter |
|
FK |
Falkirk |
|
FY |
Blackpool (Fylde) |
|
G |
Glasgow |
|
GL |
Gloucester |
|
GU |
Guildford |
|
GY |
Guernsey |
|
HA |
Harrow |
|
HD |
Huddersfield |
|
HG |
Harrogate |
|
HP |
Hemel Hempstead |
|
HR |
Hereford |
|
HS |
Hebrides
(recoding of PA8#) because of unacceptably high level of manual miscodes to
PA8, introduced in 1995. |
|
HU |
Hull |
|
HX |
Halifax |
|
IG |
Ilford |
|
IM |
Isle of Man |
|
IP |
Ipswich |
|
IV |
Inverness |
|
JE |
Jersey |
|
KA |
Kilmarnock |
|
KT |
Kingston-upon-Thames |
|
KW |
Kirkwall |
|
L |
Liverpool |
|
LA |
Lancaster |
|
LD |
Llandridnod Wells |
|
LE |
Leicester |
|
LL |
Llandudno |
|
LN |
Lincoln |
|
LS |
Leeds |
|
LU |
Luton |
|
M |
Manchester |
|
ME |
Medway |
|
MK |
Milton Keynes |
|
ML |
Motherwell |
|
N |
London North |
|
NE |
Newcastle-upon-Tyne |
|
NG |
Nottingham |
|
NN |
Northampton |
|
NP |
Newport Mon. |
|
NR |
Norwich |
|
NW |
London North West |
|
OL |
Oldham |
|
OX |
Oxford |
|
PA |
Paisley |
|
PE |
Peterborough |
|
PH |
Perth |
|
PL |
Plymouth |
|
PO |
Portsmouth |
|
PR |
Preston |
|
RG |
Reading |
|
RH |
Redhill |
|
RM |
Romford |
|
S |
Sheffield |
|
SA |
Swansea |
|
SE |
London South East |
|
SG |
Stevenage |
|
SK |
Stockport |
|
SL |
Slough |
|
SM |
Sutton (Sutton and Mitcham) |
|
SN |
Swindon |
|
SO |
Southampton |
|
SP |
Salisbury (Salisbury Plain) |
|
SR |
Sunderland |
|
SS |
Southend-on-Sea |
|
ST |
Stoke-on-Trent |
|
SW |
London South West |
|
SY |
Shrewsbury |
|
TA |
Taunton |
|
TD |
Galashiels (Tweed) |
|
TF |
Telford |
|
TN |
Tonbridge |
|
TQ |
Torquay |
|
TR |
Truro |
|
TS |
Cleveland (Teesside) |
|
TW |
Twickenham |
|
UB |
Southall (Uxbridge) |
|
W |
London West |
|
WA |
Warrington |
|
WC |
London West Central |
|
WD |
Watford |
|
WF |
Wakefield |
|
WR |
Worcester |
|
WS |
Walsall |
|
WV |
Wolverhampton |
|
YO |
York |
|
ZE |
Lerwick (Shetland/Zetland) |
|
|
|
The origins of the
existing UK Postcode go back as far as the middle of the nineteenth century and
arose from the rapid growth of London in the earlier years of that century. So
rapid was this that the then Post Office could no longer regard the city as a
single town from the viewpoint of sorting mail. Thus the division of London
into Postal Districts in 1857-8 effectively divided
the capital into smaller and semi-independent postal towns. Sir Rowland Hill.
the designer of the first stamp and the man who introduced the uniform postal
rate for the whole country, carved up London into eight such Districts. These
were denoted by letters representing compass points, such as N (Northern), E
(Eastern) and WC (Western Central). Thereafter, all mail from the rest of the
country was sent directly to the appropriate office. Between 1864 and 1912,
cities such as Liverpool, Manchester, Dublin and Sheffield followed this lead.
Towards the end of
the nineteenth century in London — then the world’s
largest city — the situation became clogged again. Initially as a war-time
labour-saving device, a suffix on the Postal District denoting
the Sub-District was introduced formally in 1917. The
allocation of the numbering was alphabetical. Thus the Eastern District became
E1 whilst Bethnal Green Sub-District became E2 and Bow became E3 [note how the
numbers were assigned following the alphabetical order of the names of the
sub-districts]. Glasgow followed London’s
lead and was the next to introduce such numbering in 1923.
Subsequently the original Postal Districts in London became Areas and the
Sub-Districts became full Districts in modern terminology.
The next stage in the
saga came in the 1950s when the first post-war investigations into the
mechanisation of mail sorting were made. It soon became evident that a more
sophisticated system of coding was required and that a major exercise would be
needed to maximise the use of the new Postcodes by the public. Experiments
based on Norwich in 1959 onwards led to the
decision to use an alphanumeric (i.e., including both alphabetic and numeric
characters) Postcode. Even after much publicity, however, these Postcodes were
only used by less than half the senders of mail in the areas concerned. Despite
internal doubts about the wisdom of the Postcode within the Post Ofice at that time, a revised version was introduced in Croydon
in 1966 and proved more successful. By 1974, the whole of the
UK had been allocated Postcodes and Norwich had been recoded. From the
viewpoint of Royal Mail, the exercise has been an extended but successful one.
Converting the
Postcode to machine-readable form was originally achieved by an operator receiving
the letters one at a time and typing the Postcode on the letter onto a
keyboard. This then printed a series of phosphor dots on the envelope to
indicate both the Outward and Inward codes. The more modern way is to use
optical character readers, which print a form of barcodes on the envelope which
is then read by the sorting equipment.[Abridged and adapted from Postcodes,
the new Geography by Raper, Rhind and Shepherd (Longman, 1992).
Some aptly
chosen UK postcodes
DH99 1NS—National
Savings certificate administration, Durham.
GIR 0AA—Girobank
headquarters, Bootle.
SAN TA1—Special
postcode for children's letters to Santa Claus.
SE1 8UJ—Union
Jack servicemen's club.
Canada (included since it is a
derivative of the UK system)
@#@ #@# [postfix
format, where @ is an alpha character and # is a numeric]
The first letter of a
Canadian Postal Code identifies a province, or part of a province:
A = Newfoundland B =
Nova Scotia C = Prince Edward Island E = New Brunswick G = eastern Quebec H =
Metro Montreal, Quebec J = western Quebec K = eastern Ontario L = central
Ontario M = Metro Toronto N = southwestern Ontario P
= northern Ontario R = Manitoba S = Saskatchewan T = Alberta V = British
Columbia X = Northwest Territories Y = Yukon Territory.
In the second
position (the first number), a 0 indicates that the postal code is for a whole
post office, usually indicated for rural communities. The 6th character (last
number) is also usually a 0 in such cases (as in L0M 1S0). All addresses for
the community have that postal code, whether these are rural routes, postal
boxes or in some cases, smaller towns with letter carrier routes. Other numbers
for the second position indicate the postal code is in a larger urban community
with letter carrier service. The postal code is thus precise enough to identify
street blocks, particular rural routes or groups of postal boxes. Postal Codes
are always separated into two blocks of three characters. The first three
characters are the Forward Sortation Area (FSA), an "area code" to
identify a district. The last three characters thus identify the block, postal
box set, or post office within the FSA.
Some special FSAs:
K1A is for federal government activities in Ottawa; M7A represents the Ontario
provincial government, G1A represents the Quebec provincial government. One
code document indicated that A9W, A9X and A9Z were used as test FSAs (these
would not be for actual locations; likely to check equipment, etc). H0H 0H0 is a special code used to write to
"Santa Claus". This is a special promotion prior to the Christmas
holidays.
The letters D, F, I,
O, Q and U are never used in a Canadian Postal Code, due to potential conflicts
with other letters or numbers. Canada Post Corporation announced plans to
extend the Postal Code by adding extra numeric digits. This is intended to
identify the exact street number on a block. or the particular postal box. As
of this writing, none of these extended postal codes have been announced. [
Extract from Postcode formats of the world, a website now defunct.]
· · The official UK postcode lookup site is at http://www.royalmail.co.uk/paf/
·
·
Link to German
postcodes, which converts old-style postcodes to current
format. [now defunct]
·
·
Link to US Zip Code
search.
·
·
Postcode
formats of the world. [now defunct]
This
survey is not exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination, so amendments and
additions will be welcomed gratefully by the compiler. Thanks!