Postal codes in Pakistan
Postal codes in Pakistan were introduced by the Pakistan Post on 1 January 1988 to improve the addressing and sortation (and delivery) of mail.[1] Pakistan's postal codes have 5 digits: two to specify the district for routing, followed by three more to narrow it down to the exact post office.[2]
Usage of the post/zip codes has been limited.[3][4] Around 2025, the Pakistan Post launched a mobile app, which among various features, provides postal codes.[5]
The numbers are sometimes written in various scripts, not just Latin / Western Arabic numerals, but also Indian numerals, such as Devanagari, Bangla, and Urdu.[6][7]
These codes are for the delivery post office in whose jurisdiction the residential, office, industrial, rural, or PO Box address falls. Non-delivery post offices also are assigned pseudo-codes for audit and accounting purposes, but these are for internal Pakistan Post use only.
Moreover, Pakistan Post Office is one of the oldest government departments in the South Asia. In 1947, it began functioning as the Department of Posts and Telegraph. In 1962 it was separated from the Telegraph & Telephone and started working as an independent post office.
GPO stands for General Post Office, the main post office in the city. For larger cities (Karachi and Lahore), there are a number of GPOs; however, the main one is the only one which has just the city's name attached to it (Karachi GPO and Lahore GPO).
References
[edit]- ^ Post Office Department, Pakistan (1987). Annual Report of the Pakistan Post Office for the Year ... Directorate General, Pakistan Post Office. p. 3. Google Books ns88RMotwXUC.
- ^ Rhind, Graham (1999) [eBook Published 28 September 2017]. "Pakistan (Pākistān)". Global Sourcebook of Address Data Management. Routledge. p. 429 (Google Books) or pp. 418–419 (ProQuest). doi:10.4324/9781315254173. ISBN 978-1-351-93326-1. Google Books iGdQDwAAQBAJ. ProQuest 2148475776.
- ^ "Post codes". Letters. Pakistan & Gulf Economist. Vol. 11, no. 1 or 2?. 1992. p. 2. Google Books mdfsAAAAMAAJ. HathiTrust mdp.39015079859875.
- ^ Zaidi, Syed Mohammad Asad; Labrique, Alain B.; Khowaja, Saira; Lotia-Farrukh, Ismat; Irani, Julia; Salahuddin, Naseem; Khan, Aamir Javed (12 December 2013). Rupprecht, Charles E. (ed.). "Geographic Variation in Access to Dog-Bite Care in Pakistan and Risk of Dog-Bite Exposure in Karachi: Prospective Surveillance Using a Low-Cost Mobile Phone System". PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. 7 (12) e2574: 4. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0002574. ISSN 1935-2735. PMC 3861251. PMID 24349590.
- ^ "Pakistan Post generated PPO commission of Rs 2.57 million under CNIC renewal project". Frontier Star. Vol. 30, no. 157. 10 June 2025. EBSCOhost 2Z10FRS20250610.30.157.00081. Factiva NBFSTA0020250610el6a00029. Nexis Uni 6G11-95N3-RRNF-C4P5-00000-00. Also published with the same title and date in The Balochistan Times (vol. 48, no. 157; Factiva NBBALU0020250610el6a0003i, Nexis Uni 6G11-95N3-RRNF-C4FH-00000-00) and Pakistan Official News / Pakistan News Gazette (Factiva PAKOFN0020250610el6a0001v, Nexis Uni 6G11-95N3-RRNF-C51V-00000-00).
- ^ Basu, Subhadip; Das, Nibaran; Sarkar, Ram; Kundu, Mahantapas; Nasipuri, Mita; Kumar Basu, Dipak (October 2010). "A novel framework for automatic sorting of postal documents with multi-script address blocks". Pattern Recognition. 43 (10): 3507–3521. Bibcode:2010PatRe..43.3507B. doi:10.1016/j.patcog.2010.05.018.
- ^ Alginaih, Yasser M.; Siddiqi, Abdul Ahad (April 2010). "Multistage Hybrid Arabic/Indian Numeral OCR System". International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security: 9–18. arXiv:1005.0907. ISSN 1947-5500. ProQuest 2087075458.
External links
[edit]- Official website (note: this seems to only be accessible from Pakistani IP addresses)
