1. Create Your Account

Variously referred to as a post office box or post-office box, a P.O. Box is a uniquely addressed box that is located within the premises of a post office. Generally, these boxes are rented from the post office by either businesses or individuals on a basis ranging from annual to monthly, with the cost varying depending on the size of the box. Variously referred to as a post office box or post-office box, a P.O. Box is a uniquely addressed box that is located within the premises of a post office. Generally, these boxes are rented from the post office by either businesses or individuals on a basis ranging from annual to monthly, with the cost varying depending on the size of the box.

Top career sections Career opportunities. From mechanics to mail handlers to marketers, explore your possibilities. Working at USPS. Challenging and rewarding environment. Locate a Post Office; ZIP Code Lookup; Service Commitments; International. Retail Calculator; Business Calculator; New Business Calculator; Customs Form Indicator; Country Max Limits and Price Groups; Zone Chart; Pricing. Price Charts HTML; Price Charts PDF; Postal Explorer. Send Mail & Packages Convenient Domestic Shipping. Want to save time and ship from home? Use Click-N-Ship ® service to pay for postage and print a shipping label from your printer or at a Post Office ™ location. Plus, you can schedule a USPS ® pickup from your home or office. With the USPS Loyalty Program, small businesses can now earn credits for Priority Mail ® and Priority Mail.

2. Verify Your Identity

3. Receive Notifications

Secure Access

Preview Incoming Mail

Track Packages

Delivery Instructions

Schedule Redelivery

Manage Notifications

Digitally preview your letter-sized mail.

Informed Delivery provides eligible residential consumers with a digital preview of their household's incoming mail scheduled to arrive soon.* Users can view greyscale images of the exterior, address side of incoming letter-sized mailpieces (not the inside contents) via email or an online dashboard. Check out our FAQs for more details.

* Images are only provided for letter-sized mailpieces that are processed through USPS' automated equipment

Manage your packages.

Receive USPS Tracking^® updates for incoming packages, provide delivery instructions, manage notifications, and schedule redelivery.

Know what's coming anytime, anywhere.

Download the USPS Informed Delivery App to view incoming mail and track incoming packages anytime, anywhere on your smartphone or tablet. It's free and available for iOS, Android, and Windows in your app store.

Frequently Asked Questions

A post office is a public facility that provides mail services, including accepting of letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may also offer additional services, which vary by country. These include providing and accepting government forms (such as passport applications), processing government services and fees (such as road tax, and postal savings or bank post office).^[1] The chief administrator of a post office is called a postmaster.

Prior to 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 nineteenth-century in the United States, this often led to smaller communities being renamed after their post offices, particularly after the Post Office Department began requiring that post office names not be duplicated within a state.^[2]

Name[edit]

The term 'Post-Office'^[3] has been in use since the 1650s,^[4] shortly after the legalization of private mail services in England in 1635.^[5] In early Modern England, post riders – mounted couriers – were placed ('posted'^[6]) every few hours along post roads at posting houses, also known as post houses, between major cities ('post towns'). These stables or inns permitted important correspondence to travel without delay. In early America, post offices were also known as 'stations'. This term and 'post house' fell from use as horse and coach service was replaced by railways, aircraft, and automobiles.

Today, the term 'Post Office' usually refers to government postal facilities providing customer service. The term 'General Post Office' is sometimes used for the national headquarters of a postal service, even if it does not provide customer service within the building. A postal facility that is used exclusively for processing mail is instead known as 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.

Us Post Office Services Online

Private courier and delivery services often have offices as well, although these are not usually called 'post offices,' except in the case of Germany, which has fully privatized its national postal system.^{[citation needed]}

History[edit]

There is evidence of corps of royal couriers disseminating the decrees of the Egyptianpharaohs as early as 2,400 BC and the service may greatly precede even that date. Similarly, organized systems of post houses providing swift mounted courier service seems quite ancient, although sources vary as to precisely who initiated the practice.^[7] Certainly, by the time of the Persian Empire, a system of Chapar-Khaneh existed along the Royal Road. The 2nd-Century BC Mauryan and Han dynasties established similar systems in India and China. Suetonius credited Augustus with regularizing the Roman 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 (Latin: stationes) privately owned rest houses (Latin: mansiones) were obliged or honored to care for them along their way. Diocletian later established two parallel systems: one providing fresh horses or mules for urgent correspondence and another providing sturdy oxen for bulk shipments. Procopius, though not unbiased, records that this system remained largely intact until it was dismantled in the surviving empire by Justinian in the 6th Century.

The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis family initiated regular mail service from Brussels in the 16th century, 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 . This post office has functioned continuously since 1712, an era in which horses and stage coaches were used to carry mail.

In parts of Europe, special postal censorship offices existed^[when?] to intercept and censor mail. In France, such offices were known as cabinets noirs.

Un-staffed postal facilities[edit]

In many jurisdictions, mail boxes and post office boxes 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. Deutsche Post introduced the Pack-Station for package delivery (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 both in post offices (for when they are closed or busy) and in retail locations.^[8] APCs can print postage and accept mail and small packages.

Notable post offices[edit]

Operational[edit]

• General Post Office Dublin (1818 inaugurated), headquarters of the Irish post and headquarters of the 1916 Easter Uprising
• First Toronto Post Office (1833)
• General Post Office (1864), erected on the site of the Black Hole of Calcutta
• General Post Office (1874) in Chennai, India
• General Post Office (1887) in Lahore, Pakistan
• General Post Office (1895), the headquarters of the Sri Lankan Post
• General Post Office (1903), headquarters of the Croatian post
• Istanbul Main Post Office (1905), home of the Istanbul Postal Museum
• James Farley Post Office (1912), America's largest operating post office, the main office for New York City. It 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'.
• General Post Office (1913), the main post office of Mumbai, India, and one of the world's largest (120,000 sq ft or 11,000 m²)
• The Edificio Central de Correos y Telégrafos building (1917), San José, Costa Rica, also contains The Costa Rican Philatelic Museum on the second floor.
• Polish Post Office, the scene of intense fighting during the 1939 German invasion of Danzig
• General Post Office Building (1922), former headquarters of the Chunghwa Post and present home of the Shanghai Postal Museum
• Manila Central Post Office (1926, rebuilt after WWII)
• Taipei Post Office (1928), the headquarters of Taiwan Post
• General Post Office (1976), the headquarters of Hongkong Post

Former[edit]

• Bandinelli Palace (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, The Monaco.
• 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
• Buenos Aires Central Post Office (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 (1928), the former post office of Naples, Italy, heavily damaged during Naples' 1943 uprising against the Nazis
• Central Post Office (1939), home to the Privy Council of Canada

Post Office Locations

Historic[edit]

• The General Post Office East (1825), former headquarters of the GPO in London, demolished in 1912

See also[edit]

• Dak bungalows, the former posthouses of the British Raj
• Freepost (also known as Business Reply Mail)
• 'Going postal'
• Postal code, ZIP code
• Poste restante (also known as General Delivery)
• Wanted poster (Post Office Wall)

References[edit]

1. ^'Canada Postal Guide - Glossary'. Canada Post. Archived from the original on January 18, 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-08.
2. ^United States Postal Service. 'What's in a (Post Office) Name?' August 2008. Accessed 2 October 2013.
3. ^Webster, Noah. American Dictionary of the English Language, 'post-house'. Accessed 2 October 2013.
4. ^Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, 'post office'. 2013. Accessed 2 October 2013.
5. ^The British Postal Museum and Archive. 'The Secret RoomArchived 2012-08-31 at the Wayback Machine'. 2011. Accessed 2 October 2013.
6. ^Harper (2013), 'post'. Accessed 2 October 2013.
7. ^Xenophon credits Cyrus the Great of Persia, others credit his successor Darius I or the earlier BabyloniankingHammurabi or the AssyriankingSargon II.
8. ^'Derry store's postal kiosk a 1st in New England'. Union Leader. December 11, 2011.

External links[edit]