Postal codes in Germany

Germany introduced postal codes on 25 July 1941, in the form of a two-digit system that was applied initially for the parcel service and later for all mail deliveries.

Today, German postal codes are numeric and have consisted of five digits since 1993.

Even though the western system had kept some number ranges free, specifically for later integration of the East in case of reunification, it was decided that the time was right to create an entirely new system for the 1990s, in which larger towns and cities would be divided into multiple postal code areas (the old system had inconsistently used additional numbers after the city's names), and companies receiving large amounts of post (such as mail-order businesses) could be assigned their own private code.

This resulted in a system where one could no longer identify the size of the city by the number of trailing zeros in its postal code (such as 2000 for Hamburg or 8000 for Munich).

On 31 December 2007, the zones had the following area and population: There are three states (Saxony, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein), in addition to the city states (Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg), that lie completely within one postal zone, while three states (Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Baden-Württemberg) cover four postal zones.