Zip Codes in Pennsylvania

The History of Zip Codes

The United States Post Office Department (USPOD) first implemented postal zones for large cities in 1943. By the early 1960s a more general system was needed, and on July 1, 1963, non-mandatory ZIP codes were announced for the whole country. The ZIP-(Zone Improvement Plan) Code was established in 1963, the system of 5-digit codes that identifies the individual post office or metropolitan area delivery station associated with an address. ZIP+4 is an enhanced code consisting of the 5-digit ZIP Code and four additional digits that identify a specific range of delivery addresses.In 1983, the U.S. Postal Service began using an expanded ZIP code system called "ZIP + 4", often called "plus-four codes", "add-on codes" or "add ons." The Postal Service has a "Find a ZIP Code" feature on its website, which provides an address format that is most compatible with its optical character recognition (OCR) scanners.

How Zip Codes Work

Zip Codes are used for tracking of mail and collecting geographical statistics in the United States. The U.S. Census Bureau uses data that includes the latitude and longitude of the center-point of some ZIP codes. The Census Bureau does not keep up-to-date datasets of all Zip Codes. Complete datasets are commercially available.A ZIP + 4 code uses the basic five-digit code plus four additional digits to identify a geographic segment within the five-digit delivery area, such as a city block, a group of apartments, an individual high-volume receiver of mail or any other unit that could use an extra identifier to aid in efficient mail sorting and delivery. Initial attempts to promote universal use of the new format met with public resistance, and today the plus-four code is not required. In general, mail is read by a multiline optical character reader (MLOCR) that almost instantly determines the correct ZIP + 4 code from the address and-along with the even more specific delivery point-sprays a Postnet barcode on the face of the mailpiece that corresponds to 11 digits.

Mazda Dealer Zip Codes in PA

19067	18966	19047	18940
19056	19020	19154	19057

 

Philadelphia Zip Codes For Mazda Dealers

19053	19055	19007	19054
19021	18977	08540	18974

 

Zip Code Designation

Many Zip Codes are for towns and villages, census-designated places, portions of cities, or entities that are not municipalities. The postal designations for place names become de facto locations for their addresses, and as a result it is difficult to convince residents and businesses that they actually are located in another city or town different from the "default" place name  associated with their ZIP codes. Because of the confusion and lack of identity generated by this situation, some cities have successfully petitioned the Postal Service to change ZIP-code boundaries or create new ZIP codes so that their cities can be the "default" place name for addresses within the ZIP code.

Acceptable place names come into play in areas of the country where many citizens identify more strongly with a particular urban center than the municipality they actually live in. For example, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania has 130 distinct municipalities, but many of the county's residents, and even residents of adjacent counties, commonly use "Pittsburgh, PA" as their postal address. The same thing applies in many cities that have more than one zip code.