What Your ZIP Code Actually Means
Like our social security numbers, birth dates, and phone numbers, our ZIP codes are one of many seemingly random number sequences etched in our minds.
But, for the most part, the only people who know what their ZIP code really means are those who work for the U.S. Postal Service. The rest of us simply tack those five digits on at the end of our address and trust our mail will end up where it belongs.
As reported by Reader’s Digest, the Postal Service didn’t begin using ZIP codes until 1963. Between 1943 and 1963, they relied on a system of postal zones for large cities only. You can see how that might get tricky!
In 1944 a postal worker named Robert Moon who was frustrated by the status quo proposed an idea for a zone system that would cover the whole country. In it, the first number represented a group of states, starting at zero on the east coast and ending at nine on the west coast. The second and third numbers indicated to which processing and distribution center the mail should go within that group.
WATCH: How to Stop Junk Mail for Good
When the Postal Service eventually adopted Moon’s plan nearly two decades later, they added on two numbers at the end to indicate the proper post office or postal zone. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the first iteration of the Zone Improvement Plan Code—or ZIP code—came to be!
According to The New York Times, Moon wasn’t involved with the final four digits in today’s nine-digit ZIP code. The Postal Service began adding those numbers, which further refine destinations, in 1983, six years after Moon’s retirement.
Thanks Mr. Moon!
Like our social security numbers, birth dates, and phone numbers, our ZIP codes are one of many seemingly random number sequences etched in our minds.
But, for the most part, the only people who know what their ZIP code really means are those who work for the U.S. Postal Service. The rest of us simply tack those five digits on at the end of our address and trust our mail will end up where it belongs.
As reported by Reader’s Digest, the Postal Service didn’t begin using ZIP codes until 1963. Between 1943 and 1963, they relied on a system of postal zones for large cities only. You can see how that might get tricky!
In 1944 a postal worker named Robert Moon who was frustrated by the status quo proposed an idea for a zone system that would cover the whole country. In it, the first number represented a group of states, starting at zero on the east coast and ending at nine on the west coast. The second and third numbers indicated to which processing and distribution center the mail should go within that group.
WATCH: How to Stop Junk Mail for Good
When the Postal Service eventually adopted Moon’s plan nearly two decades later, they added on two numbers at the end to indicate the proper post office or postal zone. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the first iteration of the Zone Improvement Plan Code—or ZIP code—came to be!
According to The New York Times, Moon wasn’t involved with the final four digits in today’s nine-digit ZIP code. The Postal Service began adding those numbers, which further refine destinations, in 1983, six years after Moon’s retirement.
Thanks Mr. Moon!
