= German Postal Codes = <> ---- == History == West Germany established a postal code system in 1962. These postal codes were 4 digits long (zero-padded). East Germany established a similar (but incompatible) system in 1965 (despite the West German system reserving codes for East Germany and provisioning a postal code to West Berlin). Following German re-unification, the pre-existing postal code systems were used with a prefix of "W" (for West) or "O" (for East). The modern postal code system in Germany was established in 1993. The German-speaking nations have an informal (and decreasingly utilized) system of prefixing postal codes with a country code. Germany's code was "D", leading to postal codes like "D-12345". ([[PostalCodes/Austria|Austria]] used "A", [[PostalCodes/Switzerland|Switzerland]] used "CH", and [[PostalCodes/Liechtenstein|Liechtenstein]] used "FL"). ---- == Specification == Modern German postal codes are 5 digits long (zero-padded). === Postal Codes by Region === The leading digit indicates a region. Note that these regions do not follow other political boundaries. Note also that Germany was divided into these regions with the intention of evenly splitting ''population'', not ''area''. ||'''Postal Region'''||'''Includes these political regions'''|| ||0||Saxony, southern parts of Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg, eastern part of Thuringia|| ||1||Berlin, larger parts of Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, small parts of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt|| ||2||Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, northern part of Lower Saxony, Bremen, small part of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern|| ||3||southern part of Lower Saxony, eastern part of Westphalia, northern parts of Hesse, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt|| ||4||north-western part of North Rhine-Westphalia, south-western part of Lower Saxony|| ||5||south-western part of North Rhine-Westphalia, larger part of Rhineland-Palatinate, small part of Hesse|| ||6||southern parts of Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, small parts of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg|| ||7||larger part of Baden-Württemberg, small part of Rhineland-Palatinate|| ||8||southern part of Bavaria, south-eastern part of Baden-Württemberg|| ||9||northern part of Bavaria (Franconia), larger part of Thuringia, small part of Baden-Württemberg|| See [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_codes_in_Germany|here]] for more details. === Historic Code Identification === Historic German postal codes could be identified by being 4 digits long (zero-padded), or by being 4 digits long prefixed by one the letters "O" or "W". ---- CategoryRicottone