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A United States postal code, for example, might be either five digits or five digits followed a hyphen (dash) and another four digits (12345-1234).

Primary state prefixes. ZIP Codes are numbered with the first digit representing a certain group of U.S. states, the second and third digits together representing a region in that group (or perhaps a large city) and the fourth and fifth digits representing a group of delivery addresses within that region.

This is because ZIP code boundaries are based on mail routes and delivery points rather than geographic factors. The U.S. Post Office Department, predecessor to USPS, developed a zoning address system in 1943 as a way to make sorting and delivery of mail easier.

So what do the extra numbers mean? These last 4 digits represent specific delivery routes within delivery areas. This extra detail means an even more precise matching to a more granular level. It could represent a handful of houses on one side of a street, or even a single building that receives a high volume of mail.

The prehistory of the ZIP code You might have used the recipient's street address along with the city and state, but you wouldn't have seen a ZIP code. Mail was hand-sorted, and delivery relied on local knowledge of its intended destination.

ZIP Codes are numbered with the first digit representing a certain group of U.S. states, the second and third digits together representing a region in that group (or perhaps a large city) and the fourth and fifth digits representing a group of delivery addresses within that region.

History & Development The ZIP in ZIP Code stands for Zone Improvement Plan, and it was introduced July 1, 1963, as part of a larger Postal Service Nationwide Improved Mail Service (NIMS) plan to improve the speed of mail delivery.

The zip (Zoning Improvement Plan) code was created when the postal service lost a huge portion of their staff who went to fight in the war. Because of this, they needed a simple way to help the understaffed postal service deliver mail effectively.

When looking at postal codes around the world, there are cases where two different cities are served by the same postal code. For example, the zip code 94608 in California is used for both Emeryville and parts of Oakland.

This first-ever ZIP Code was 00601, designating a decent chunk of Puerto Rico as the first Zone Improvement Plan (ZIP) in the United States.