Post office#Name

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The term "post-office"Webster, Noah. American Dictionary of the English Language, "[http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/word/post-house post-house] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004212954/http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/word/post-house |date=2013-10-04 }}". Accessed 2 October 2013. has been in use since the 1650s,Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, "[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=post+office post office] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004215722/http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=post+office |date=2013-10-04 }}". 2013. Accessed 2 October 2013. shortly after the legislation of private mail services in England in 1635.The British Postal Museum and Archive. "[http://www.postalheritage.org.uk/page/peoplespost-secretroom The Secret Room] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120831192736/http://postalheritage.org.uk/page/peoplespost-secretroom|date=2012-08-31}}". 2011. Accessed 2 October 2013. In early modern England, post riders—mounted couriers—were placed, or "posted",Harper (2013), "[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=post post] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130930024127/http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=post |date=2013-09-30 }}". Accessed 2 October 2013. every few hours along post roads at posting houses (also known as post houses) between major cities, or "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, as well as the term "post house", fell from use as horse and coach services were replaced by railways, aircraft, and automobiles.

File:Surathkal Post Office,India.jpg, India]]

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

In India, post offices are found in almost every village having panchayat (a "village council"), towns, cities, and throughout the geographical area of India. India's postal system changed its name to India Post after the advent of private courier companies in the 1990s. It is run by the Indian government's Department of Posts.{{cite web|url=https://www.indiapost.gov.in/VAS/Pages/AboutUs/AboutUs.aspx\|title= About Us|access-date=28 March 2021}} India Post accepts and delivers inland letters, postcards, parcels, postal stamps, and money orders (money transfers). Few post offices in India offer speed post (fast delivery) and payments or bank savings services. It is also uncommon for Indian post offices to sell insurance policies or accept payment for electricity, landline telephone, or gas bills. Until the 2000 A.D., post offices would collect fees for radio licenses, recruitment for government jobs, and the operation of public call telephone (PCO) booths. Postmen would deliver letters, money orders, and parcels to places that are within the assigned area of a particular post office. Each Indian post office is assigned a unique six-digit code called the Postal Index Number, or PIN. Each post office is identified by its PIN. Post offices coming under Department of Posts, Ministry of Communication, Government of India have a history of one hundred fifty years.{{ cite web|url=https://www.indiapost.gov.in/VAS/Pages/AboutUs/AboutUs.aspx|title=About us|author=India Post|access-date=30 March 2023}}

Private courier and delivery services often have offices as well, although these are usually not called "post offices", except in the case of Germany, which has fully privatised its national postal system.{{Citation needed|date=June 2020|reason=presumably this refers to German-language equivalent term, but it's not clear}}

As abbreviation PO is used, together with GPO for General Post Office and LPO for Licensed Post Office.

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File:World's_oldest_postcard.jpg postcard]]

File:Tallinn post office.jpg in Tallinn, Estonia]]

There is evidence of corps of royal couriers disseminating the decrees of Egyptian pharaohs as early as 2400{{Spaces}}BCE, and it is possible that the service greatly precedes that date. Similarly, there may be ancient organised systems of post houses providing mounted courier service, although sources vary as to precisely who initiated the practice.Xenophon credits Cyrus the Great of Persia, others credit his successor Darius I or the earlier Babylonian king Hammurabi or the Assyrian king Sargon II.

In the Persian Empire, a Chapar Khaneh system existed along the Royal Road. Similar postage systems were established in India and China by the Mauryan and Han dynasties in the 2nd century BCE.

The Roman historian Suetonius credited Augustus with regularizing the Roman transportation and courier 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 ({{langx|la|{{linktext|stationes}}}}) privately owned rest houses ({{langx|la|{{linktext|mansiones}}}}) and were obliged or honored to care for couriers along their way. The Roman emperor Diocletian later established two parallel systems: one providing fresh horses or mules for urgent correspondence and the other providing sturdy oxen for bulk shipments. The Byzantine historian Procopius, though not unbiased, records the Cursus Publicus system remained largely intact until it was dismantled in the Byzantine empire by the emperor 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. The post office has functioned continuously since 1712, during which horses and stagecoaches were used to carry mail.

Rural parts of Canada in the 19th century utilized the way office system. Villagers could leave their letters at the way office which were then taken to the nearest post office, as well as pick up their mail from the way office.{{Cite web |title=A Chronology of Canadian Postal History |url=https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/cpm/chrono/ch1867be.html |website=Canadian Museum of History}}

In parts of Europe, special postal censorship offices existed{{when|date=December 2017}} to intercept and censor mail. In France, such offices were known as cabinets noirs.

File:Mailroom in University.jpg

File:GPO - The Inland letter office ILN 1844.jpg in London in 1844]]

In many jurisdictions, mailboxes 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. Germany's national postage system Deutsche Post introduced the Pack-Station for package delivery, including 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 in both post offices, for when they are closed or busy, and retail locations.{{cite news |url=http://www.unionleader.com/article/20111212/NEWS02/712129997 |title=Derry store's postal kiosk a 1st in New England |work=Union Leader |date=December 11, 2011 |archive-date=July 1, 2017 |access-date=March 26, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170701145702/http://www.unionleader.com/article/20111212/NEWS02/712129997 |url-status=dead }} APCs can print postage and accept mail and small packages.

• General Post Office, state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969
• General Post Office in Dublin (inaugurated 1818), headquarters of the Irish post and headquarters of the 1916 Easter Uprising
• 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
• General Post Office (1976), the headquarters of Hongkong Post
• 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)
• General Post Office Building (1922), former headquarters of the Chunghwa Post and present home of the Shanghai Postal Museum
• Central Post Office (1939), also temporary home to the Privy Council of Canada
• Manila Central Post Office (1926, rebuilt after WWII)
• James Farley Post Office (1912), America's largest operating post office, the main office for New York City. 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"
• The Edificio Central de Correos y Telégrafos building (1917), San José, Costa Rica. Contains the Costa Rican Philatelic Museum on the second floor
• Polish Post Office, a scene of intense fighting during the 1939 Nazi Germany invasion of Danzig
• Taipei Post Office (1928), the headquarters of Taiwan Post
• First Toronto Post Office (1833)
• Istanbul Main Post Office (1905), home of the Istanbul Postal Museum

• Bandinelli Palace (1589), a former post office in Lviv in Ukraine
• General Post Office (1842), Washington, D.C.'s first all-marble building, patterned after Rome's Temple of Jupiter and now the Hotel Monaco, a four-star hotel
• 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
• Magna Plaza, a shopping center at Amsterdam
• 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
• Utrecht Post Office, since 2020 a large public library at Utrecht, Netherlands

• The General Post Office East (1825), former headquarters of the GPO in London, demolished in 1912
• John, Richard R. Private Enterprise, Public Good? University Of Carolina, 1839-1851.

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• Postage stamp
• Dak bungalows, the former posthouses of the British Raj
• Freepost (also known as Business Reply Mail)
• "Going postal"
• Mail
• Military mail
• Old U.S. Post Offices
• Penny Post
• Post office box
• Postal administration
• Postal code, ZIP code
• History of United States postage rates
• Poste restante (also known as General Delivery)
• Universal Postal Union
• Wanted poster (Post Office Wall)
• Missing Post Office
• John, Richard R. Private Enterprise, Public Good? University Of Carolina, 1839-1851.{{col div end}}

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{{commons category|Post offices}}

{{NIE Poster|Post-Office}}

• [http://www.postmarks.org/photos/ Photos of post offices around the world]
• [http://www.upu.int Universal Postal Union]

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