Post office

"Posting house" redirects here. For other uses, see Post House (disambiguation).
For national postal networks, sometimes called "the Post Office", see Mail. For other uses, see Post Office (disambiguation).
A post office building in Edithburgh, Australia
West Toledo Branch Post Office, Toledo, Ohio, 1912
The West Toledo Branch Post Office in Toledo, Ohio, in 1912

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

Before 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 19th century in the United States, this often led to smaller communities being renamed after their post offices, particularly after the Post Office Department began to require that post office names not be duplicated within a state.[2]

  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? Archived 2013-03-30 at the Wayback Machine" August 2008. Accessed 2 October 2013.