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United States Post Office Department

The United States Post Office Department (USPOD; also known as the Post Office or U.S. Mail) was the predecessor of the United States Postal Service, established in 1792. From 1872 to 1971, it was officially in the form of a Cabinet department. It was headed by the postmaster general.

The Postal Service Act, signed by U.S. president George Washington on February 20, 1792, established the department. Postmaster General John McLean, in office from 1823 to 1829, was the first to call it the Post Office Department rather than just the "Post Office." The organization received a boost in prestige when President Andrew Jackson invited his postmaster general, William T. Barry, to sit as a member of the Cabinet in 1829. The Post Office Act of 1872 elevated the Post Office Department to Cabinet status.

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), postal services in the Confederate States of America were provided by the Confederate States of America Post-office Department, headed by Postmaster General John Henninger Reagan. It faced insurmountable obstacles, especially the requirement that it not run a deficit.

The Postal Reorganization Act was signed by President Richard Nixon on August 12, 1970. It replaced the cabinet-level Post Office Department with the independent United States Postal Service on July 1, 1971. The regulatory role of the postal services was then transferred to the Postal Regulatory Commission.

Foundations
In the early years of the North American colonies, many attempts were made to initiate a postal service. These early attempts were of small scale and usually involved a colony, Massachusetts Bay Colony for example, setting up a location in Boston where one could post a letter back home to England. Other attempts focused on a dedicated postal service between two of the larger colonies, such as Massachusetts and Virginia, but the available services remained limited in scope and disjointed for many years. For example, informal independently run postal routes operated in Boston as early as 1639, with a Boston to New York City service starting in 1672.

A central postal organization came to the colonies in 1691, when Thomas Neale received a 21-year grant from the British Crown for a North American Postal Service. On February 17, 1691, a grant of letters patent from the joint sovereigns, William III and Mary II, empowered him:

to erect, settle, and establish within the chief parts of their majesties' colonies and plantations in America, an office or offices for receiving and dispatching letters and pacquets, and to receive, send, and deliver the same under such rates and sums of money as the planters shall agree to give, and to hold and enjoy the same for the term of twenty-one years.

The patent included the exclusive right to establish and collect a formal postal tax on official documents of all kinds. The tax was repealed a year later. Neale appointed Andrew Hamilton, Governor of New Jersey, as his deputy postmaster. The first postal service in America commenced in February 1692. Rates of postage were fixed and authorized, and measures were taken to establish a post office in each town in Virginia. Massachusetts and the other colonies soon passed postal laws, and a very imperfect post office system was established. Neale's patent expired in 1710, when Parliament extended the English postal system to the colonies. The chief office was established in New York City, where letters were conveyed by regular packets across the Atlantic.

The American Revolution
Before the Revolution, there was only a trickle of business or governmental correspondence between the colonies. Most of the mail went back and forth to counting houses and government offices in London. The revolution made Philadelphia, the seat of the Continental Congress, the information hub of the new nation. News, new laws, political intelligence, and military orders circulated with a new urgency, and a postal system was necessary. Journalists took the lead, securing post office legislation that allowed them to reach their subscribers at very low cost, and to exchange news from newspapers between the thirteen states. Overthrowing the London-oriented imperial postal service in 1774–1775, printers enlisted merchants and the new political leadership, and created a new postal system. The United States Post Office (USPO) was created on July 26, 1775, by decree of the Second Continental Congress. Benjamin Franklin headed it briefly.

Before the Revolution, individuals like Benjamin Franklin and William Goddard were the colonial postmasters who managed the mails then and were the general architects of a postal system that started out as an alternative to the Crown Post.

After the Revolution
The official post office was created in 1792 as the Post Office Department (USPOD). It was based on the Constitutional authority empowering Congress "To establish post offices and post roads". The 1792 law provided for a greatly expanded postal network, and served editors by charging newspapers an extremely low rate. The law guaranteed the sanctity of personal correspondence, and provided the entire country with low-cost access to information on public affairs, while establishing a right to personal privacy.

Rufus Easton was appointed by Thomas Jefferson first postmaster of St. Louis under the recommendation of Postmaster General Gideon Granger. Rufus Easton was the first postmaster and built the first post office west of the Mississippi. At the same time Easton was appointed by Thomas Jefferson, judge of Louisiana Territory, the largest territory in North America. Bruce Adamson wrote that: "Next to Benjamin Franklin, Rufus Easton was one of the most colorful people in United States Postal History." It was Easton who educated Abraham Lincoln's attorney general, Edward Bates. In 1815 Edward Bates moved into the Easton home and lived there for years at Third and Elm. Today this is the site of the Jefferson Memorial Park. In 1806 Postmaster General Gideon Granger wrote a three-page letter to Easton, begging him not to partake in a duel with vice-president Aaron Burr. Two years earlier it was Burr who had shot and killed Alexander Hamilton. Many years later in 1852, Easton's son, Brevet Major-General Langdon Cheves Easton, was commissioned by William T. Sherman, at Fort Union to deliver a letter to Independence, Missouri. Sherman wrote: "In the Spring of 1852, General Sherman mentioned that the quartermaster, Major L.C. Easton, at Fort Union, New Mexico, had occasion to send some message east by a certain date, and contracted with Aubrey to carry it to the nearest post office (then Independence, Missouri), making his compensation conditional on the time consumed. He was supplied with a good horse, and an order on the outgoing trains for exchange. Though the whole route was infested with hostile Indians, and not a house on it, Aubrey started alone with his rifle. He was fortunate in meeting several outward-bound trains, and thereby made frequent changes of horses, some four or five, and reached Independence in six days, having hardly rested or slept the whole way."

To cover long distances, the Post Office used a hub-and-spoke system, with Washington as the hub and chief sorting center. By 1869, with 27,000 local post offices to deal with, it had changed to sorting mail en route in specialized railroad mail cars, called railway post offices, or RPOs. The system of postal money orders began in 1864. Free mail delivery began in the larger cities in 1863.

19th century
The postal system played a crucial role in national expansion. It facilitated expansion of the western American frontier by creating an inexpensive, fast, convenient communication system. Letters from early settlers provided information and boosterism to encourage increased migration to the West, helped scattered families stay in touch and provide assistance, assisted entrepreneurs in finding business opportunities, and made possible regular commercial relationships between merchants in the west and wholesalers and factories back east. The postal service likewise assisted the army in expanding control over the vast western territories. The widespread circulation of important newspapers by mail, such as the New York Weekly Tribune, facilitated coordination among politicians in different states. The postal service helped integrate established areas with the frontier, creating a spirit of nationalism and providing a necessary infrastructure.

The Post Office in the 19th century was a major source of federal patronage. Local postmasterships were rewards for local politicians—often the editors of party newspapers. About three quarters of all federal civilian employees worked for the Post Office. In 1816 it employed 3,341 men, and in 1841, 14,290. The volume of mail expanded much faster than the population, as it carried annually 100 letters and 200 newspapers per 1,000 white population in 1790, and 2,900 letters and 2,700 newspapers per thousand in 1840.

The Post Office Department was enlarged during the tenure of President Andrew Jackson. As the Post Office expanded, difficulties were experienced due to a lack of employees and transportation. The Post Office's employees at that time were still subject to the so-called "spoils" system, where faithful political supporters of the executive branch were appointed to positions in the post office and other government corporations as a reward for their patronage. These appointees rarely had prior experience in postal service and mail delivery. This system of political patronage was replaced in 1883, after passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act.

In 1823, ten years after the Post Office had first begun to use steamboats to carry mail between post towns where no roads existed, waterways were declared post roads. Once it became clear that the postal system in the United States needed to expand across the entire country, the use of the railroad to transport the mail was instituted in 1832, on one line in Pennsylvania. All railroads in the United States were designated as post routes, after passage of the Act of July 7, 1838. Mail service by railroad increased rapidly thereafter.

An Act of Congress provided for the issuance of stamps on March 3, 1847, and the postmaster general immediately let a contract to the New York City engraving firm of Rawdon, Wright, Hatch, and Edson. The first stamp issue of the U.S. was offered for sale on July 1, 1847, in New York City, with Boston receiving stamps the following day and other cities thereafter. The 5-cent stamp paid for a letter weighing less than 1 oz and traveling less than 300 miles, the 10-cent stamp for deliveries to locations greater than 300 miles, or twice the weight deliverable for the 5-cent stamp.

In 1847, the U.S. Mail Steamship Company acquired the contract which allowed it to carry the U.S. mails from New York, with stops in New Orleans and Havana, to the Isthmus of Panama for delivery in California. The same year, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company had acquired the right to transport mail under contract from the United States Government from the Isthmus of Panama to California. In 1855, William Henry Aspinwall completed the Panama Railway, providing rail service across the Isthmus and cutting to three weeks the transport time for the mails, passengers and goods to California. This remained an important route until the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. Railroad companies greatly expanded mail transport service after 1862, and the Railway Mail Service was inaugurated in 1869.

Rail cars designed to sort and distribute mail while rolling were soon introduced. RMS employees sorted mail "on-the-fly" during the journey, and became some of the most skilled workers in the postal service. An RMS sorter had to be able to separate the mail quickly into compartments based on its final destination, before the first destination arrived, and work at the rate of 600 pieces of mail an hour. They were tested regularly for speed and accuracy.

Parcel Post service began with the introduction of International Parcel Post between the U.S. and foreign countries in 1887. That same year, the U.S. Post Office and the postmaster general of Canada established parcel-post service between the two nations. A bilateral parcel-post treaty between the independent (at the time) Kingdom of Hawaii and the USA was signed on December 19, 1888 and put into effect early in 1889. Parcel-post service between the U.S. and other countries grew with the signing of successive postal conventions and treaties. While the Post Office agreed to deliver parcels sent into the country under the UPU treaty, it did not institute a domestic parcel-post service for another twenty-five years.

20th century
The advent of Rural Free Delivery (RFD) in the U.S. in 1896, and the inauguration of a domestic parcel post service by Postmaster General Frank H. Hitchcock in 1913, greatly increased the volume of mail shipped nationwide, and motivated the development of more efficient postal transportation systems. Many rural customers took advantage of inexpensive Parcel Post rates to order goods and products from businesses located hundreds of miles away in distant cities for delivery by mail. From the 1910s to the 1960s, many college students and others used parcel post to mail home dirty laundry, as doing so was less expensive than washing the clothes themselves.

After four-year-old Charlotte May Pierstorff was mailed from her parents to her grandparents in Idaho in 1914, mailing of people was prohibited. In 1917, the Post Office imposed a maximum daily mailable limit of two hundred pounds per customer per day after a business entrepreneur, W. H. Coltharp, used inexpensive parcel-post rates to ship more than eighty thousand masonry bricks some four hundred seven miles via horse-drawn wagon and train for the construction of a bank building in Vernal, Utah.

The advent of parcel post also led to the growth of mail order businesses that substantially increased rural access to modern goods over what was typically stocked in local general stores.

One of the largest organizations of the early 20th century, the Post Office Department is reported to have had nearly 350,000 employees in 1924.

United States Postal Savings System
In 1912, carrier service was announced for establishment in towns of second and third class with $100,000 appropriated by Congress. From January 1, 1911, until July 1, 1967, the United States Post Office Department operated the United States Postal Savings System. An Act of Congress of June 25, 1910, established the Postal Savings System in designated post offices, effective January 1, 1911. The legislation aimed to get money out of hiding, attract the savings of immigrants accustomed to the postal savings system in their native countries, provide safe depositories for people who had lost confidence in banks, and furnish more convenient depositories for working people. The law establishing the system directed the Post Office Department to redeposit most of the money in the system in local banks, where it earned 2.5 percent interest.

The system paid 2% interest per year on deposits. The half-percent difference in interest was intended to pay for the operation of the system. Certificates were issued to depositors as proof of their deposit. Depositors in the system were initially limited to hold a balance of $500, but this was raised to $1,000 in 1916 and to $2,500 in 1918. The initial minimum deposit was $1. In order to save smaller amounts for deposit, customers could purchase a 10-cent postal savings card and 10-cent postal savings stamps to fill it. The card could be used to open or add to an account when its value, together with any attached stamps, amounted to one or more dollars, or it could be redeemed for cash. At its peak in 1947, the system held almost $3.4 billion in deposits, with more than four million depositors using 8,141 postal units.

Airmail
On August 12, 1918, the Post Office Department took over airmail service from the United States Army Air Service (USAAS). Assistant Postmaster General Otto Praeger, appointed Benjamin B. Lipsner to head the civilian-operated Air Mail Service. One of Lipsner's first acts was to hire four pilots, each with at least 1,000 hours' flying experience, paying them an average of $4,000 per year ($ today). The Post Office Department used new Standard JR-1B biplanes specially modified to carry the mail while the war was still in progress, but following the war operated mostly World War I surplus military de Havilland DH-4 aircraft.

During 1918, the Post Office hired an additional 36 pilots. In its first year of operation, the Post Office completed 1,208 airmail flights with 90 forced landings. Of those, 53 were due to weather and 37 to engine failure. By 1920, the Air Mail service had delivered 49 million letters. Domestic air mail became obsolete in 1975, and international air mail in 1995, when the USPS began transporting First-Class mail by air on a routine basis.

The Post Office was the first federal government departments to regulate obscene materials on a national basis. When the U.S. Congress passed the Comstock laws of 1873, it became illegal to send through the U.S. mail any material considered obscene or indecent, or which promoted abortion issues or birth control. Following the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling, the Comstock Act became a renewed matter of contention. The Biden administration stated that the Comstock Act does not prohibit mailing abortifacients intended for lawful use, and the law is the subject of an ongoing federal court case.

In 1937 to 1941 The Post Office handled the shipment of gold from the New York City Assay office and Philadelphia Mint to the newly constructed bullion depository at Fort Knox.

U.S. postal strike of 1970
On March 18, 1970, postal workers in New York City—upset over low wages and poor working conditions, and emboldened by the Civil Rights Movement—organized a strike against the United States government. The strike initially involved postal workers in only New York City, but it eventually gained support of over 210,000 United States Post Office Department workers across the nation. While the strike ended without any concessions from the Federal government, it did ultimately allow for postal worker unions and the government to negotiate a contract which gave the unions most of what they wanted, as well as the signing of the Postal Reorganization Act by President Richard Nixon on August 12, 1970. The act replaced the cabinet-level Post Office Department with a new federal agency, the United States Postal Service, effective July 1, 1971.

title: United States Post Office Department


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Montreux

Montreux (,, ; Montrolx) is a Swiss municipality and town on the shoreline of Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps. It belongs to the Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut district in the canton of Vaud, having a population of approximately 26,500, with about 85,000 in the Vevey-Montreux agglomeration as of 2019.

Located in the centre of a region named the Vaud or Swiss Riviera (Riviera vaudoise), Montreux has been an important tourist destination since the 19th century due to its mild climate. The region includes numerous Belle Époque palaces and hotels near the shores of Lake Geneva. Montreux railway station is a stop on the Simplon Railway and is a mountain railway hub.

History
The earliest settlement was a Late Bronze Age village at Baugy. Montreux lies on the north east shore of Lake Geneva at the fork in the Roman road from Italy over the Simplon Pass, where the roads to the Roman capital of Aventicum and the road into Gaul through Besançon separated. This made it an important settlement in the Roman era. A Roman villa from the 2nd-4th centuries and a 6th–7th century cemetery have been discovered.

The name derives from a small monastery (monasteriolum) on the site by the 11th century, which subsequently developed as Mustruel, Muchtern (1215), Muistruum (1228), Monstruacum, Mustruz, and Moutru. Viniculture was introduced in the 12th century, and the sunny slopes of the lake from Lavaux to Montreux became an important winegrowing region. In 1295, the Bishop of Sion sold the parish of Montreux to Girard of Oron. In 1317, it was split between the Lords of Oron (Le Châtelard) and the Counts of Savoy (Les Planches). A Brotherhood of the Holy Spirit administered estates and a hospital in Montreux starting in about 1309.

The region was subject to various princes, most notably the princes of Savoy from the south side of the lake. They unified the territory which comprises the present canton of Vaud and were generally popular sovereigns.

After the Burgundian Wars in the 15th century, the Swiss in Bern occupied the region without resistance, an indication of the weakness of the princes of Savoy. Under Bernese rule (1536–1798) it belonged to the Bailiwick of Chillon (renamed in 1735 into the Bailiwick of Vevey).

The Reformation made the region around Montreux and Vevey an attractive haven for Huguenots from Italy, who brought their artisanal skills and set up workshops and businesses.

The abbey of Les Echarpes blanches was founded in 1626.

In 1798, Napoleon captured the region from the Bernese. In the 19th century, the tourist industry became a major commercial outlet, with the grand hotels of Montreux attracting the rich and cultured from Europe and America.

Starting in the 19th century there were three independent municipalities that shared a central authority. This county council was made up of four deputies from Le Châtelard, two from Les Planches and one from Veytaux. The church, the market hall of La Rouvenaz, the secondary school (the building was from 1872 and 1897) and the slaughter-house (1912) were all owned by the county council. Each municipality had its own taxes and a mayor. In 1962, the municipalities of Le Châtelard and Les Planches merged, while Veytaux remained independent.

Geography
Montreux has an area,, of 33.41 km2. Of this area, 8.34 km2 or 25.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while 16.80 km2 or 50.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 6.68 km2 or 20.0% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.09 km2 or 0.3% is either rivers or lakes and 1.55 km2 or 4.6% is unproductive land.

Of the built up area, housing and buildings make up 11.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 6.4%. Out of the forested land, 46.8% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.9% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 1.5% is used for growing crops and 9.9% is pastures, while 1.2% is used for orchards or vine crops and 13.7% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.

The municipality was part of the Vevey District until it was dissolved on 31 August 2006, and Montreux became part of the new district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut.

The municipality stretches from Lake Geneva to the foothills of the Swiss Alps (Rochers-de-Naye). It includes the former municipalities of Montreux-Les Planches (until 1952 Les Planches) and Montreux-Le Châtelard (until 1952 Le Châtelard). It was formed in 1962 with the merger of the two former municipalities.

Climate
The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for Montreux's climate is "Cfb" (Marine West Coast Climate/Oceanic climate).

Demographics
Montreux has a population of. , 44.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009) the population has changed at a rate of 14.7%. It has changed at a rate of 22.3% due to migration and at a rate of -0.8% due to births and deaths.

Most of the population speaks French (16,695 or 74.4%) as their first language, with German being second most common (1,398 or 6.2%) and Italian being third (897 or 4.0%). There are 9 people who speak Romansh.

The age distribution,, in Montreux is; 2,050 children or 8.3% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 3,021 teenagers or 12.2% are between 10 and 19. Of the adult population, 4,216 people or 17.0% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 3,016 people or 12.2% are between 30 and 39, 3,552 people or 14.4% are between 40 and 49, and 3,048 people or 12.3% are between 50 and 59. The senior population distribution is 2,565 people or 10.4% of the population are between 60 and 69 years old, 1,795 people or 7.3% are between 70 and 79, there are 1,206 people or 4.9% who are between 80 and 89, and there are 263 people or 1.1% who are 90 and older.

, there were 9,380 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 9,758 married individuals, 1,631 widows or widowers and 1,685 individuals who are divorced.

, there were 9,823 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2 persons per household. There were 4,198 households that consist of only one person and 402 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 10,236 households that answered this question, 41.0% were households made up of just one person and there were 53 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 2,563 married couples without children, 2,245 married couples with children. There were 605 single parents with a child or children. There were 159 households that were made up of unrelated people and 413 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.

there were 1,375 single family homes (or 43.2% of the total) out of a total of 3,183 inhabited buildings. There were 1,024 multi-family buildings (32.2%), along with 530 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (16.7%) and 254 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (8.0%).

, a total of 9,553 apartments (70.7% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 3,043 apartments (22.5%) were seasonally occupied and 916 apartments (6.8%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 1.6 new units per 1000 residents.

the average price to rent an average apartment in Montreux was 1067.93 Swiss francs (CHF) per month (US$850, £480, €680 approx. exchange rate from 2003). The average rate for a one-room apartment was 567.76 CHF (US$450, £260, €360), a two-room apartment was about 787.77 CHF (US$630, £350, €500), a three-room apartment was about 1014.16 CHF (US$810, £460, €650) and a six or more room apartment cost an average of 1817.64 CHF (US$1450, £820, €1160). The average apartment price in Montreux was 95.7% of the national average of 1116 CHF. The vacancy rate for the municipality,, was 0.55%.

The historical population is given in the following chart:

Heritage sites of national significance
The Audiorama, the Swiss National Audiovisual Museum, Crêtes Castle, Châtelard Castle, the Train Station, the Hôtel Montreux Palace, the Caux Palace Hotel, the Ile and Villa Salagnon, the Marché couvert, the Palace-Hôtel, the Grand Hôtel de Territet which was formerly the Grand-Hôtel/the Hôtel des Alpes, served as the recording studio for Deep Purple's record Machine Head, and the Villa Karma are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance. The entire urban village of Territet / Veytaux as well as the Caux, Montreux and Villas Dubochet areas are all part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.

Twin towns
Montreux is twinned with the towns of
 * 🇫🇷 Menton, France
 * 🇩🇪 Wiesbaden, Germany
 * 🇯🇵 Chiba, Japan

Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SP which received 22.11% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (21.97%), the FDP (16.06%) and the Green Party (13.49%). In the federal election, a total of 4,473 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 39.7%.

Economy
, Montreux had an unemployment rate of 6.9%. , there were 70 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 27 businesses involved in this sector. 1,165 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 174 businesses in this sector. 9,290 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 999 businesses in this sector. There were 10,202 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 46.1% of the workforce.

the total number of full-time equivalent jobs was 8,991. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 55, of which 31 were in agriculture, 17 were in forestry or lumber production and 6 were in fishing or fisheries. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 1,118 of which 403 or (36.0%) were in manufacturing and 708 (63.3%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 7,818. In the tertiary sector; 1,296 or 16.6% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 439 or 5.6% were in the movement and storage of goods, 1,311 or 16.8% were in a hotel or restaurant, 70 or 0.9% were in the information industry, 564 or 7.2% were the insurance or financial industry, 458 or 5.9% were technical professionals or scientists, 943 or 12.1% were in education and 1,591 or 20.4% were in health care.

, there were 4,949 workers who commuted into the municipality and 4,964 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.0 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. About 2.3% of the workforce coming into Montreux are coming from outside Switzerland, while 0.0% of the locals commute out of Switzerland for work. Of the working population, 22.5% used public transportation to get to work, and 50.9% used a private car.

Religion
From the, 8,557 or 38.1% were Roman Catholic, while 6,438 or 28.7% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 745 members of an Orthodox church (or about 3.32% of the population), there were 18 individuals (or about 0.08% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 925 individuals (or about 4.12% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 73 individuals (or about 0.33% of the population) who were Jewish, and 1,031 (or about 4.59% of the population) who were Muslim. There were 80 individuals who were Buddhist, 171 individuals who were Hindu and 90 individuals who belonged to another church. 2,796 (or about 12.45% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 1,941 individuals (or about 8.64% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education
In Montreux about 7,464 (33.2%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 3,171 or (14.1%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule). Of the 3,171 who completed tertiary schooling, 39.8% were Swiss men, 25.3% were Swiss women, 19.8% were non-Swiss men and 15.1% were non-Swiss women.

In the 2009/2010 school year there were a total of 2,106 students in the Montreux school district. In the Vaud cantonal school system, two years of non-obligatory pre-school are provided by the political districts. During the school year, the political district provided pre-school care for a total of 817 children of which 456 children (55.8%) received subsidized pre-school care. The canton's primary school program requires students to attend for four years. There were 1,056 students in the municipal primary school program. The obligatory lower secondary school program lasts for six years and there were 931 students in those schools. There were also 119 students who were home schooled or attended another non-traditional school.

, there were 490 students in Montreux who came from another municipality, while 790 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

Public libraries
Montreux is home to the Bibliothèque municipale de Montreux et Veytaux library. The library has 48,948 books or other media, and loaned out 99,490 items in the same year. It was open a total of 274 days with average of 28 hours per week during that year.

Private schools
The Riviera School or École Riviera, an international school, is in Montreux.

Other local schools include Surval Montreux (an international all girls boarding school) and St George's School in Switzerland (British international school, in Clarens).

Institut Monte Rosa, an international co-educational boarding school, is in Territet. Swiss Montreux Business School

Private hospitality schools in the area include Swiss Hotel Management School (in Caux), Hotel Institute Montreux (Montreux), and Glion Institute of Higher Education (Glion).

Transportation
Montreux has three railway stations on the Simplon line, Clarens, Territet, and Montreux. The latter is also the western terminus of the Montreux–Glion–Rochers-de-Naye and Montreux–Lenk im Simmental lines, both of which climb into the hills away from Lake Geneva and have several dozen stations within Montreux.

Culture
Montreux was a haven for Catherine Barkley and Lt. Frederic Henry in Ernest Hemingway's classic novel A Farewell to Arms.

Montreux hosts several festivals:
 * The Septembre musical de Montreux, founded in 1946 and held every year since then.
 * Freddie Celebration Days — Montreux Celebration is organising this major and entirely free event in Montreux around September 5, the birthday of Freddie Mercury, late singer of the band Queen.
 * The Montreux Jazz Festival, held annually in July since 1967. It is held at the Montreux Convention Centre, built in 1973, and has become a global phenomenon.
 * The Golden Rose Festival, annually in spring (1961–2003), which awarded the Golden Rose of Montreux, an international award for television.
 * The Golden Award of Montreux, annually in April, is traditionally, since 1989, the first international advertising and multimedia Competition in Europe – starting the global season for awarding creative excellence.

Montreux has a walking trail along the lake, stretching from Villeneuve to Vevey. The main square of the town, Place du Marché, features a statue of Freddie Mercury facing Lake Geneva. Some of the numerous small cities around Montreux include La Tour-de-Peilz, and Villeneuve. The Château of Chillon has views over Lake of Geneva and can be accessed via bus, train, walk or boat.

Deep Purple traveled to Montreux in December 1971 to record Machine Head. The band's song "Smoke on the Water" tells of the events of December 1971, when a Frank Zappa fan with a flare gun set the Montreux Casino on fire, destroying the casino where they had originally planned to record the album. Thanks to Claude Nobs, who eventually arranged alternate locations, the Grand Hôtel de Territet was where almost the entirety of the album was created and recorded, except for "Smoke on the Water" which had already been partly recorded at the "Le Petit Palais", formerly called "Le Pavilion". Deep Purple again returned in 1973 to record Burn. The Montreux Casino was reopened in 1975, and later a monument commemorating Deep Purple and their song "Smoke on the Water" was built along the lake shore, with the band's name, the song title, and the riff in musical notes. However, the only other memorial dedicated to the band's song that can be found nowadays in Montreux, is a small plaque placed outside the back entrance of the former Grand Hôtel de Territet.

The Dubliners's song "Montreux Monto" on their album Live at Montreux was recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1976.

Montreux is the home of Mountain Studios, the recording studio used by several artists. "Bonzo's Montreux" by Led Zeppelin is named after the city where the drums session of John Bonham was recorded in 1976. In 1978, the band Queen bought the studio. It was then sold to Queen producer David Richards. In 2002, the Mountain Studios was converted into a bar as part of a complete renovation of the studio. David Richards has left Montreux to settle down somewhere else. Queen also appeared in 1984 and in 1986 at the Golden Rose Festival and Queen guitarist Brian May appeared in 2001 at the Jazz Festival. Montreux was also the subject of the 1995 Queen single "A Winter's Tale" on the album Made in Heaven, one of Freddie's last songs before his death on 24 November 1991. The album cover features the statue of Mercury beside the lake.

In 1990, the Wakker Prize for the development and preservation of its architectural heritage was awarded to Montreux.

The Fédération Internationale de Roller Sports was founded in Montreux in 1924. Montreux HC, the oldest roller hockey club in Switzerland (founded in 1911) is based in Montreux.

The symphonic metal band Ad Infinitum was founded in Montreux.

Notable residents

 * Claude Abravanel (1924–2012), a pianist and composer of classical music
 * Ian Anderson (born 1947), Scottish musician, frontman of Jethro Tull
 * Jim Beach (born 1942), the manager of the British rock band Queen
 * Alain Bernheim (born 1931), former musician now Masonic researcher
 * David Bowie (1947–2016), British musician
 * Sergei Aleksandrovich Buturlin (1872–1938), Russian ornithologist
 * Noël Coward (1899–1973), English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer
 * A. J. Cronin (1896–1981), Scottish novelist and physician
 * Laurent Dufaux (born 1969), Swiss cyclist
 * Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948), wife of American author F. Scott Fitzgerald
 * Douglas Jardine (1900–1958), cricketer, 22 Test matches for England, captain 15 times.
 * Patrick Juvet (1950–2021), a model turned singer-songwriter
 * Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980), an Austrian poet, playwright and expressionistic artist
 * Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (1867–1951), Finnish statesman
 * Georg Baron von Manteuffel-Szoege (1889–1962) a German politician
 * Freddie Mercury (1946–1991), British musician, lead singer of Queen
 * Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977), a Russian-born novelist, poet, translator and entomologist
 * Claude Nobs (1939–2013), Swiss founder of Montreux Jazz Festival
 * Clément Novalak (born 2000), French-Swiss racing driver
 * Luc Plamondon (born 1942), French-Canadian lyricist
 * Bezalel Rakow (1927–2003) an orthodox rabbi of Gateshead’s Jewish community
 * Uri Rosenthal (born 1945), Dutch politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs 2010–2012
 * Dame Joan Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE (1926–2010), Australian opera singer
 * Horst Tappe (1938–2005), German photographer of creative artists, writers and philosophers
 * Pyotr Iliych Tchaikovsky (1840–1893), Russian composer
 * Joannes Benedictus van Heutsz (1851–1924), Governor General of Dutch East Indies
 * Jean Villard (1895–1982) a chansonnier, poet, comedian, actor and cabaretist.
 * Rick Wakeman (born 1949), English keyboardist (Yes)
 * Franz Weber (1927-2019), an environmentalist and animal welfare activist
 * Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg (1884–1966), a Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi, posek, and rosh yeshiva
 * Weltin Wolfinger (1926–2010), a Liechtenstein bobsledder, competed in the 1956 Winter Olympics
 * Ardeshir Zahedi (1928–2021), former Iranian foreign minister and son-in-law of Shah of Iran
 * Fazlollah Zahedi (1892–1963), former Iranian Prime Minister of Iran

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Montreux


text:
Postal code

A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal address for the purpose of sorting mail.

the Universal Postal Union lists 160 countries which require the use of a postal code.

Although postal codes are usually assigned to geographical areas, special codes are sometimes assigned to individual addresses or to institutions that receive large volumes of mail, such as government agencies and large commercial companies. One example is the French CEDEX system.

Terms
There are a number of synonyms for postal code; some are country-specific:
 * CAP: The standard term in Italy; CAP is an acronym for codice di avviamento postale ('postal expedition code').
 * CEP: The standard term in Brazil; CEP is an acronym for código de endereçamento postal ('postal addressing code').
 * Eircode: The standard term in Ireland.
 * NPA in French-speaking Switzerland (numéro postal d'acheminement) and Italian-speaking Switzerland (numero postale di avviamento).
 * PIN: The standard term in India; PIN is an acronym for Postal Index Number. Sometimes called a PIN code.
 * PLZ: The standard term in Germany, Austria, German-speaking Switzerland and Liechtenstein; PLZ is an abbreviation of Postleitzahl ('postal routing number').
 * Postal code: The general term is used in Canada.
 * Postcode: This solid compound is popular in many English-speaking countries and is also the standard term in the Netherlands.
 * Postal index: This term is used in Eastern European countries such as Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, etc.
 * PSČ: The standard term in Slovakia and the Czech Republic; PSČ is an acronym for Poštové smerovacie číslo (in Slovak) or Poštovní směrovací číslo (in Czech), both meaning postal routing number.
 * ZIP Code: The standard term in the United States and the Philippines; ZIP is an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan.

History
The development of postal codes happened first in large cities. Postal codes began with postal district numbers (or postal zone numbers) within large cities. London was first subdivided into 10 districts in 1857 (EC (East Central), WC (West Central), N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, and NW), four were created to cover Liverpool in 1864; and Manchester/Salford was split into eight numbered districts in 1867/68. By World War I, such postal district or zone numbers also existed in various large European cities. They existed in the United States at least as late as the 1920s, possibly implemented at the local post office level only (for example, instances of "Boston 9, Mass" in 1920 are attested ) although they were evidently not used throughout all major US cities (implemented USPOD-wide) until World War II.

By 1930 or earlier, the idea of extending the postal district or zone numbering plans beyond large cities to cover even small towns and rural locales had started. These developed into postal codes as they are defined today. The name of US postal codes, "ZIP Codes", reflects this evolutionary growth from a zone plan to a zone improvement plan, "ZIP". Modern postal codes were first introduced in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in December 1932, but the system was abandoned in 1939. The next country to introduce postal codes was Germany in 1941, followed by Singapore in 1950, Argentina in 1958, the United States in 1963 and Switzerland in 1964. The United Kingdom began introducing its current system in Norwich in 1959, but it was not used nationwide until 1974.

Character sets
The characters used in postal codes are:
 * The Western Arabic numerals "0" to "9"
 * Letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet
 * Spaces, hyphens

Reserved characters
Postal codes in the Netherlands originally did not use the letters 'F', 'I', 'O', 'Q', 'U' and 'Y' for technical reasons. But as almost all existing combinations are now used, these letters were allowed for new locations starting 2005. The letter combinations "SS" (Schutzstaffel), "SD" (Sicherheitsdienst), and "SA" (Sturmabteilung) are not used, due to links with the Nazi occupation in World War II.

Postal codes in Canada do not include the letters D, F, I, O, Q, or U, as the optical character recognition (OCR) equipment used in automated sorting could easily confuse them with other letters and digits. The letters W and Z are used, but are not currently used as the first letter. The Canadian Postal Codes use alternate letters and numbers (with a space after the third character) in this format: A9A 9A9

In Ireland, the eircode system uses the following letters only: A, C, D, E, F, H, K, N, P, R, T, V, W, X, Y. This serves to avoid confusion in OCR, and to avoid accidental double-entendres by avoiding the creation of word lookalikes, as Eircode's last four characters are random.

Alphanumeric postal codes
Most of the postal code systems are numeric; only a few are alphanumeric (i.e., use both letters and digits). Alphanumeric systems can, given the same number of characters, encode many more locations. For example, while a two digit numeric code can represent 100 locations, a two character alphanumeric code using ten numbers and twenty letters can represent 900 locations.

The independent nations using alphanumeric postal code systems are:
 * Argentina (see table)
 * Brunei (see table)
 * Canada (see table)
 * Eswatini
 * Ireland (see table)
 * Jamaica (see table) (suspended in 2007 )
 * Kazakhstan (since 2015)
 * Malta (see table)
 * Netherlands (see table)
 * Peru (see table), the postal code format in Peru was updated in February 2011 to be of the format of five digits.
 * Somalia
 * United Kingdom (see table)

Countries which prefix their postal codes with a fixed group of letters, indicating a country code, include Andorra, Azerbaijan, Barbados, Ecuador and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Country code prefixes
ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes were recommended by the European Committee for Standardization as well as the Universal Postal Union to be used in conjunction with postal codes starting in 1994, but they have not become widely used. Andorra, Azerbaijan, Barbados, Ecuador, Latvia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines use the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 as a prefix in their postal codes.

In some countries (such as in continental Europe, where a numeric postcode format of four or five digits is commonly used) the numeric postal code is sometimes prefixed with a country code when sending international mail to that country.

Placement of the code
Postal services have their own formats and placement rules for postal codes. In most English-speaking countries, the postal code forms the last item of the address, following the city or town name, whereas in most continental European countries it precedes the name of the city or town. When it follows the city, it may be on the same line or on a new line.

In Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Turkmenistan, it is written at the beginning of an address. In Japan, it is written at the start of the address when written in Japanese, but at the end when the address is written in the Latin alphabet.

Geographic coverage
Postal codes are usually assigned to geographical areas. Sometimes codes are assigned to individual addresses or to institutions that receive large volumes of mail, e.g. government agencies or large commercial companies. One example is the French Cedex system.

Postal zone numbers
Before postal codes as described here were used, large cities were often divided into postal zones or postal districts, usually numbered from 1 upwards within each city. The newer postal code systems often incorporate the old zone numbers, as with London postal district numbers, for example. Ireland still uses postal district numbers in Dublin. In New Zealand, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch were divided into postal zones, but these fell into disuse, and have now become redundant as a result of a new postcode system being introduced.

Codes defined along administrative borders
Some postal code systems, like those of Ecuador and Costa Rica, show an exact agreement with the hierarchy of administrative divisions.

Format of six digit numeric (eight digit alphanumeric) postal codes in Ecuador, introduced in December 2007: ECAABBCC
 * EC – ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code
 * AA – one of the 24 provinces of Ecuador (24 of 100 possible codes used = 24%)
 * BB – one of the 226 cantons of Ecuador (for AABB 221 of 10000 codes used, i.e. 2.21%)
 * CC – one of the parishes of Ecuador.

Format of five digit numeric Postal codes in Costa Rica, introduced in 2007: ABBCC
 * A – one of the seven provinces of Costa Rica (7 of 10 used, i.e. 70%)
 * BB – one of the 81 cantons of Costa Rica (81 of 100 used, i.e. 81%)
 * CC – one of the districts of Costa Rica.

In Costa Rica these codes were originally used as district identifiers by the National Institute of Statistics and Census of Costa Rica and the Administrative Territorial Division, and continue to be equivalent.

The first two digits of the postal codes in Turkey correspond to the provinces and each province has assigned only one number. They are the same for them as in ISO 3166-2:TR.

The first two digits of the postal codes in Vietnam indicate a province. Some provinces have one, other have several two digit numbers assigned. The numbers differ from the number used in ISO 3166-2:VN.

Codes defined close to administrative boundaries

In France the numeric code for the departments is used as the first two digits of the postal code, except for the two departments in Corsica that have codes 2A and 2B and use 20 as postal code. Furthermore, the codes are only the codes for the department in charge of delivery of the post, so it can be that a location in one department has a postal code starting with the number of a neighbouring department.

Codes defined indirectly to administrative borders
The first digit of the postal codes in the United States comprises discrete states. From the first three digits one can infer the state, with a few exceptions where an area is served by a central office in an adjacent state.

Similarly, in Canada, the first letter indicates the province or territory, although the provinces of Quebec and Ontario are divided into several lettered sub-regions (e.g. H for Montreal and Laval), and the Northwest Territories and Nunavut share the letter X.

Codes defined independently from administrative areas
The first two digits of the postal codes in Germany define areas independently of administrative regions. The coding space of the first digit is fully used (0–9); that of the first two combined is utilized to 89%, i.e. there are 89 postal zones defined. Zone 11 is non-geographic.

Royal Mail designed the postal codes in the United Kingdom mostly for efficient distribution. Nevertheless, people associated codes with certain areas, leading to some people wanting or not wanting to have a certain code. See also postcode lottery.

In Brazil the 8-digit postcodes are an evolution of the five-digit area postal codes. In the 1990s the Brazilian five-digit postal code (illustrated),, received a three-digit suffix  , but this suffix is not directly related to the administrative district hierarchy. The suffix was created only for logistic reasons.

The postal code assignment can be assigned to individual land lots in some special cases – in Brazil, they are named "large receivers" and receive suffixes 900–959. It is an error to associate the postal code with the whole land lot area (illustrated). A postal code is often related to a land lot, but postal codes are usually related to access points on streets. Small or middle-sized houses, in general, only have a single main gate, which is the delivery point. Parks, large businesses such as shopping centers and big houses, may have more than one entrance and more than one delivery point.

Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia introduced Postal Routing Numbers (PSČ – poštovní směrovací čísla) in 1973. The code consists of 5 digits formatted into two groups: NNN NN. Originally, the first group marked a district transport centre, the second group represented the order of post offices on the collection route. In the first group, the first digit corresponds partly with the region, the second digit meant a collection transport node (sběrný přepravní uzel, SPU) and the third digit a "district transport node" (okresní přepravní uzel). However, processing was later centralized and mechanized while codes remained the same. After separation, Slovakia and the Czech Republic kept the system. Codes with an initial digit of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 are used in the Czech Republic, while codes with an initial digit of 8, 9, or 0 are used in Slovakia

A code corresponds to a local postal office. However, some larger companies or organizations have their own post codes. In 2004–2006, there were some efforts in Slovakia to reform the system, to get separate post codes for every district of single postmen, but the change was not realized.

India

Postal codes are known as Postal Index Numbers (PINs; sometimes as PIN codes) in India. The PIN system was introduced on 15 August 1972 by India Post. India uses a unique six-digit code as a geographical number to identify locations in India. The format of the PIN is ZSDPPP defined as follows:

 * Z – Zone
 * S – Sub-zone
 * D – Sorting District
 * P – Service Route
 * PP – Post Office

The first digit represents nine total zones: eight regional and one functional.

Ireland
In Ireland, the new postal code system launched in 2015, known as Eircode provides a unique 7-character alphanumerical code for each individual address. The first three digits are the routing key, which is a postal district and the last four characters are a unique identifier that relates to an individual address (business, house or apartment). A fully developed API is also available for integrating the Eircode database into business databases and logistics systems.

With a single exception, these codes are in the format:

ANN XXXX

The single exception is the Dublin D6W postal district. It is the only routing key area in the country that takes the format ANA instead of ANN:

D6W XXXX

While it is not intended to replace addresses, in theory simply providing a seven-character Eircode would locate any Irish delivery address. For example, the Irish Parliament Dáil Éireann is: D02 A272

Netherlands
Postal codes in the Netherlands, known as postcodes, are alphanumeric, consisting of four digits followed by a space and two letters (NNNN AA). Adding the house number to the postcode will identify the address, making the street name and town name redundant. For example: 2597 GV 75 will direct a postal delivery to Theo Mann-Bouwmeesterlaan 75, 's-Gravenhage (the International School of The Hague).

Singapore
Since 1 September 1995, every building in Singapore has been given a unique, six-digit postal code.

United Kingdom
For domestic properties, an individual postcode may cover up to 100 properties in contiguous proximity (e.g. a short section of a populous road, or a group of less populous neighbouring roads). The postcode together with the number or name of a property is not always unique, particularly in rural areas. For example, GL20 8NX/1 might refer to either 1 Frampton Cottages or 1 Frampton Farm Cottages, roughly a quarter of a mile (400 metres) apart.

The structure is alphanumeric, with the following six valid formats, as defined by BS 7666:

A9 9AA A9A 9AA A99 9AA AA9 9AA AA9A 9AA AA99 9AA

There are always two halves: the separation between outward and inward postcodes is indicated by one space.

The outward postcode covers a unique area and has two parts which may in total be two, three or four characters in length. A postcode area of one or two letters, followed by one or two numbers, followed in some parts of London by a letter.

The outward postcode and the leading numeric of the inward postcode in combination forms a postal sector, and this usually corresponds to a couple of thousand properties.

Larger businesses and isolated properties such as farms may have a unique postcode. Extremely large organisations such as larger government offices or bank headquarters may have multiple postcodes for different departments.

There are about 100 postcode areas, ranging widely in size from BT which covers the whole of Northern Ireland to WC for a small part of Central London. Postcode areas occasionally cross national boundaries, such as SY which covers a large, predominantly rural area from Shrewsbury and Ludlow in Shropshire, England, through to the seaside town of Aberystwyth, Ceredigion on Wales' west coast.

United States
In the United States, the basic ZIP Code is composed of five numbers. The first three numbers identify a specific sectional center facility—or central sorting facility—that serves a geographic region (typically a large part of a state). The next two numbers identify a specific post office either serving an area of a city (if in an urban area or large suburban area) or an entire village, town, or small city and its surrounding area (if in a small suburban or rural area).

There is an extended format of the ZIP Code known as the ZIP+4, which contains the basic five-digit ZIP Code, followed by a hyphen and four additional digits. These digits identify a specific delivery route, such as one side of a building, a group of apartments, or several floors of a large office building. Although using the ZIP+4 offers higher accuracy, addressing redundancy, and sorting efficiency within the USPS, it is optional and not widely used by the general public. It is primarily only used by business mailers.

For high volume business mailers using automated mailing machines, the USPS has promulgated the Intelligent Mail barcode standard, which is a barcode containing the ZIP+4 code plus a two digit delivery point. This 11-digit number is theoretically a unique identifier for every address in the country.

States and overseas territories sharing a postal code system
French overseas departments and territories use the five-digit French postal code system, each code starting with the three-digit department identifier. Monaco is also integrated in the French system and has no system of its own.

The British Crown Dependencies of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man are part of the UK postcode system. They use the schemes AAN NAA and AANN NAA, in which the first two letters are a unique code (GY, JE and IM respectively). Most of the Overseas Territories have UK-style postcodes, with a single postcode for each territory or dependency, although they are still treated as international destinations by Royal Mail in the UK, and charged at international rather than UK inland rates. The four other Overseas Territories Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands have their own separate systems and formats.

The Pacific island states of Palau, Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia remain part of the US ZIP code system, despite having become independent states.

San Marino and the Vatican City are part of the Italian postcode system, while Liechtenstein similarly uses the Swiss system, as do the Italian exclave of Campione d'Italia and the German exclave of Büsingen am Hochrhein, although they also form part of their respective countries' postal code systems.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia still use the codes of the former Czechoslovakia, their ranges not overlapping. In 2004–2006, Slovakia prepared a reform of the system but the plan was postponed and maybe abandoned. In the Czech Republic, there was no significant effort to modify the system.

Non-geographic codes
In the United Kingdom, the non-conforming postal code GIR 0AA was used for the National Girobank until its closure in 2003. A non-geographic series of postcodes, starting with BX, is used by some banks and government departments.

 * HM Revenue and Customs – VAT Controller
 * VAT Central Unit
 * BX5 5AT

A fictional address is also used by Royal Mail for letters to Santa Claus, more commonly known as Santa or Father Christmas:

 * Santa's Grotto
 * Reindeerland XM4 5HQ

Previously, the postcode SAN TA1 was used.

In Finland, the special postal code 99999 is for Korvatunturi, the place where Santa Claus (Joulupukki in Finnish) is said to live, although mail is delivered to the Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi.

In Canada, the amount of mail sent to Santa Claus increased every Christmas, up to the point that Canada Post decided to start an official Santa Claus letter-response program in 1983. Approximately one million letters come in to Santa Claus each Christmas, including from outside of Canada, and all of them are answered in the same languages in which they are written. Canada Post introduced a special address for mail to Santa Claus, complete with its own postal code:

 * SANTA CLAUS
 * NORTH POLE H0H 0H0

In Belgium bpost sends a small present to children who have written a letter to Sinterklaas. They can use the non-geographic postal code 0612, which refers to the date Sinterklaas is celebrated (6 December), although a fictional town, street and house number are also used. In Dutch, the address is

 * Sinterklaas
 * Spanjestraat 1
 * 0612 Hemel

This translates as "1 Spain Street, 0612 Heaven". In French, the street is called "Paradise Street":

 * Saint-Nicolas
 * Rue du Paradis 1
 * 0612 Ciel

Non-postal uses
While postal codes were introduced to expedite the delivery of mail, they can be used for:
 * Finding the nearest branch of an organisation to a given address. A computer program uses the postal codes of the target address and the branches to list the closest branches in order of distance. This can be used by companies to inform potential customers where to go, by job centres to find jobs for job-seekers, to alert people of town planning applications in their area, and for other applications.
 * Fine-grained postal codes can be used with satellite navigation systems to navigate to an address by street number and postcode.
 * Geographical sales territories for representatives in the pharmaceutical industry are allocated based on a workload index that is based upon postcode.
 * Population data can be isolated, grouped and/or organized by postal code for statistical analysis.

Availability
In some countries, the postal authorities charge for access to the code database. , the United Kingdom Government is consulting on whether to waive licensing fees for some geographical data sets (to be determined) related to UK postcodes.

title: Postal code


text:
ZIP Code

A ZIP Code (an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan ) is a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service (USPS). The term ZIP was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently and quickly (zipping along) when senders use the code in the postal address.

Introduced on July 1, 1963, the basic format comprised five digits. In 1983, an extended code was introduced named ZIP+4 ; it included the five digits of the ZIP Code, followed by a hyphen and four digits that designated a more specific location.

ZIP Code and ZIP+4 are registered trademarks of the United States Postal Service, which also registered ZIP Code as a service mark until 1997.

History
The early history and context of postal codes began with postal district/zone numbers. The United States Post Office Department (USPOD) implemented postal zones for 178 large cities in May 1943. Postmaster General Frank Walker explained that many experienced postal clerks were going into the army, and the zone system would enable inexperienced clerks to sort mail without having to learn the delivery area of each city carrier.

For example:

Mr. John Smith 3256 Epiphenomenal Avenue Minneapolis 16, Minnesota

The "16" is the number of the postal zone in a specific city.

By the early 1960s, a more organized system was needed, and non-mandatory five-digit ZIP Codes were introduced nationwide on July 1, 1963. The USPOD issued its Publication 59: Abbreviations for Use with ZIP Code on October 1, 1963, with the list of two-letter state abbreviations which are generally written with both letters capitalized. An earlier list, publicized in June 1963, had proposed capitalized abbreviations ranging from two to five letters. According to Publication 59, the two-letter standard was "based on a maximum 23-position line, because this has been found to be the most universally acceptable line capacity basis for major addressing systems", which would be exceeded by a long city name combined with a multi-letter state abbreviation, such as "Sacramento, Calif." along with the ZIP Code. The abbreviations have remained unchanged, with the exception of Nebraska, which was changed from NB to NE in 1969 at the request of the Canadian Post Office Department, to avoid confusion with New Brunswick.

Robert Moon is considered the father of the ZIP Code; he submitted his proposal in 1944 while working as a postal inspector.

The phrase "zone improvement plan" is credited to D. Jamison Cain, a Postal Service executive. The post office credits Moon with only the first three digits of the ZIP Code, which describe the sectional center facility (SCF) or "sec center". An SCF is a central mail processing facility with those three digits. The fourth and fifth digits, which give a more precise locale within the SCF, were proposed by Henry Bentley Hahn Sr.

The SCF sorts mail to all post offices with those first three digits in their ZIP Codes. The mail is sorted according to the final two digits of the ZIP Code and sent to the corresponding post offices in the early morning. Sectional centers do not deliver mail and are not open to the public, although the building may include a post office that is open to the public, and most of their employees work the night shift. Items of mail picked up at post offices are sent to their own SCFs in the afternoon, where the mail is sorted overnight. In the case of large cities, the last two digits as assigned generally coincided with the older postal zone number.

For example:

Mr. John Smith 3256 Epiphenomenal Avenue Minneapolis, MN55416

In 1967, these became mandatory for second- and third-class bulk mailers, and the system was soon adopted generally. The United States Post Office used a cartoon character, which it called Mr. ZIP, to promote the use of the ZIP Code. The name "Mr. ZIP" was coined by D. Jamison Cain. Mr. ZIP was often depicted with a legend such as "USE ZIP CODE" in the selvage of panes of postage stamps or on the covers of booklet panes of stamps. Mr. ZIP was featured prominently alongside musical group "The Swingin' Six" in a variety show that the post office used to explain the importance of using ZIP Codes.

ZIP+4
In 1983, the U.S. Postal Service introduced an expanded ZIP Code system that it named ZIP+4, often known as "plus-four codes", "add-on codes", or "add-ons". A ZIP+4 Code uses the basic five-digit code plus four additional digits to identify a geographic segment within the five-digit delivery area, such as a city block, a group of apartments, an individual high-volume receiver of mail, a post office box, or any other unit that could use an extra identifier to aid in efficient mail sorting and delivery. However, the new format was not adopted universally by the public; it eventually became obsolete with modern technology. In general, mail is read by a multiline optical character reader (MLOCR) that almost instantly determines the correct ZIP+4 Code from the address—along with the even more specific delivery point—and sprays an Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb) on the face of the mail piece that corresponds to 11 digits—nine for the  ZIP+4 Code and two for the delivery point.

For post office boxes, the general but not invariable rule is that each box has its own ZIP+4 Code. The add-on code is often one of the following: the last four digits of the box number (e.g. PO Box 107050, Albany, NY 12201-7050), zero plus the last three digits of the box number (e.g., PO Box 17727, Eagle River, AK 99577-0727), or, if the box number consists of fewer than four digits, enough zeros are attached to the front of the box number to produce a four-digit number (e.g., PO Box 77, Juneau, AK 99750-0077). However, there is no uniform rule, so the ZIP+4 Code must be looked up individually for each box (e.g. using the USPS's official ZIP Code Lookup tool, and being sure to enter just city and state, not the 5-digit ZIP).

Postal bar code
The ZIP Code is often translated into an Intelligent Mail barcode that is printed on the mailpiece to make it easier for automated machines to sort. A barcode can be printed by the sender (some word-processing programs such as WordPerfect include the feature), but this is not recommended, as the address-to-ZIP lookup tables can be significantly out of date.

Customers who send bulk mail can get a discount on postage if they have printed the barcode themselves and have presorted the mail. This requires more than just a simple font; mailing lists must be standardized with up-to-date Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS)-certified software that adds and verifies a full, correct ZIP+4 Code and an additional two digits representing the exact delivery point. Furthermore, mail must be sorted in a specific manner to an 11-digit code with at least 150 mailpieces for each qualifying ZIP Code and must be accompanied by documentation confirming this. These steps are usually done with PAVE-certified software that also prints the barcoded address labels and the barcoded sack or tray tags.

The assignment of delivery point digits (the 10th and 11th digits) is intended to ensure that every single mailable point in the country has its own 11-digit number. The delivery-point digits are calculated based on the primary or secondary number of the address. The USPS publishes the rules for calculating the delivery point in a document called the CASS Technical Guide.

Scope and international mail
ZIP Codes designate delivery points within the United States (and its territories). There are generally no ZIP Codes for deliveries to other countries, except for the independent countries of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau, each of which is integrated into the U.S. postal system under a Compact of Free Association. Another exception is ZIP Codes used for overseas stations of U.S. armed forces.

Mail to U.S. diplomatic missions overseas is addressed as if it were addressed to a street address in Washington, D.C. The four-digit diplomatic pouch number is used as a building number, while the city in which the embassy or consulate is located is combined with the word "Place" to form a fictional street name. Each mission uses a ZIP+4 Code consisting of 20521 and the diplomatic pouch number.

For example, the U.S. Embassy in India has this address in India's postal system:

Embassy of the United States of America Shantipath, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi, 110021

as well as this U.S. address:

Embassy of the United States of America 9000 New Delhi Place Washington, DC20521-9000

Individuals posted at diplomatic missions overseas are now assigned a Diplomatic Post Office address and unique box number. The ZIP Code identifies the diplomatic mission destination and is different from the diplomatic pouch number in the example above. While delivered through the pouch system, mail to such addresses are not considered "Diplomatic Pouch" materials, and as such must adhere to the mailing regulations of the host country. An example address is:

JOHN ADAMS UNIT 8400 BOX 0000 DPO AE09498-0048

By type and use
There are four types of ZIP Codes:

 * Unique: assigned to a single high-volume address
 * Post office box-only: used only for PO boxes at a given facility, not for any other type of delivery
 * Military: used to route mail for the U.S. military
 * Standard: all other ZIP Codes.

Unique ZIP Codes are used for governmental agencies, universities, businesses, or buildings receiving sufficiently high volumes of mail to justify the assignment to them of exclusive ZIP Codes. Government examples include 20505 for the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C., and 81009 for the Federal Citizen Information Center of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) in Pueblo, Colorado. An example of a university-specific ZIP Code is 21252, which serves Towson University. An example of a private address unique ZIP Code is that assigned to the headquarters of Walmart (72716). They may also be assigned to a single program, such as the Postal Service's Operation Santa Claus program, under which children are invited to write to Santa Claus at "North Pole 88888".

An example of a PO box-only ZIP Code is 22313, used for boxes at the main post office in Alexandria, Virginia, including those used by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. In the area surrounding that post office, home and business mail delivery addresses use ZIP Code 22314, a standard  ZIP Code.

Primary state prefixes

ZIP Codes are numbered with the first digit representing a certain group of U.S. states, the second and third digits together representing a region in that group (or perhaps a large city) and the fourth and fifth digits representing a group of delivery addresses within that region. The main town in a region (if applicable) often gets the first ZIP Codes for that region; afterward, the numerical order often follows the alphabetical order. Because ZIP Codes are intended for efficient postal delivery, there are unusual cases where a ZIP Code crosses state boundaries, such as a military facility spanning multiple states or remote areas of one state most easily serviced from a bordering state. For example, ZIP Code 42223 serves Fort Campbell, which spans Christian County, Kentucky, and Montgomery County, Tennessee, and  ZIP Code 97635 includes portions of Lake County, Oregon, and Modoc County, California.

In general, the first three digits designate a sectional center facility, the mail sorting and distribution center for an area. A sectional center facility may have more than one three-digit code assigned to it. For example, the Northern Virginia sectional center facility in Merrifield is assigned codes 220, 221, 222, and 223. In some cases, a sectional center facility may serve an area in an adjacent state, usually due to the lack of a proper location for a center in that region. For example, 739 in Oklahoma is assigned to Amarillo, Texas; 297 in South Carolina is assigned to Charlotte, North Carolina; 865 in Arizona is assigned to Albuquerque, New Mexico; and 961 in California to Reno, Nevada.

Many of the lowest ZIP Codes, which begin with '0', are in the New England region. In the '0' region are New Jersey (non-contiguous with the remainder of the '0' area), Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and APO/FPO military addresses for personnel stationed in Europe, Africa, Southwest Asia, and onboard vessels based in the waters adjoining those lands. The lowest ZIP Code is in Holtsville, New York (00501, a ZIP Code exclusively for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service center there). Other low ZIP Codes are 00601 for Adjuntas, Puerto Rico; 01001 for Agawam, Massachusetts, and the ZIP Codes 01002 and 01003 for Amherst, Massachusetts; 01002 is used for mail in town, while 01003 is reserved for the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Until 2001, there were six ZIP Codes lower than 00501 that were numbered from 00210 to 00215 (located in Portsmouth, New Hampshire) and were used by the Diversity Immigrant Visa program to receive applications from non-U.S. citizens.

The numbers increase southward along the East Coast, such as 02115 (Boston), 10001 (New York City), 19103 (Philadelphia), 21201 (Baltimore), 20008 (Washington, D.C.), 30303 (Atlanta), and 33130 (Miami) (these are only examples, as each of these cities contains several ZIP Codes in the same range). From there, the numbers increase heading westward and northward east of the Mississippi River, southward west of the Mississippi River, and northward on the West Coast. For example, 40202 is in Louisville, 50309 in Des Moines, 60601 in Chicago, 63101 in St. Louis, 77036 in Houston, 80202 in Denver, 94111 in San Francisco, 98101 in Seattle, and 99950 in Ketchikan, Alaska (the highest ZIP Code).

The first digit of the ZIP Code is allocated as follows:

 * 0 = Connecticut (CT), Massachusetts (MA), Maine (ME), New Hampshire (NH), New Jersey (NJ), New York (NY, Fishers Island only), Puerto Rico (PR), Rhode Island (RI), Vermont (VT), Virgin Islands (VI), Army Post Office Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East (APO AE); Fleet Post Office Europe and the Middle East (FPO AE)
 * 1 = Delaware (DE), New York (NY), Pennsylvania (PA)
 * 2 = District of Columbia (DC), Maryland (MD), North Carolina (NC), South Carolina (SC), Virginia (VA), West Virginia (WV)
 * 3 = Alabama (AL), Florida (FL), Georgia (GA), Mississippi (MS), Tennessee (TN), Army Post Office Americas (APO AA), Fleet Post Office Americas (FPO AA)
 * 4 = Indiana (IN), Kentucky (KY), Michigan (MI), Ohio (OH)
 * 5 = Iowa (IA), Minnesota (MN), Montana (MT), North Dakota (ND), South Dakota (SD), Wisconsin (WI)
 * 6 = Illinois (IL), Kansas (KS), Missouri (MO), Nebraska (NE)
 * 7 = Arkansas (AR), Louisiana (LA), Oklahoma (OK), Texas (TX)
 * 8 = Arizona (AZ), Colorado (CO), Idaho (ID), New Mexico (NM), Nevada (NV), Utah (UT), Wyoming (WY)
 * 9 = Alaska (AK), American Samoa (AS), California (CA), Guam (GU), Hawaii (HI), Marshall Islands (MH), Federated States of Micronesia (FM), Northern Mariana Islands (MP), Oregon (OR), Palau (PW), Washington (WA), Army Post Office Pacific (APO AP), Fleet Post Office Pacific (FPO AP)

Secondary regional prefixes (123xx) and local ZIP Codes (12345)

The second and third digits represent the sectional center facility (SCF) (e.g. 477xx = Vanderburgh County, Indiana), and the fourth and fifth digits represent the area of the city (if in a metropolitan area), or a village/town (outside metro areas), e.g. 47722 (4=Indiana, 77=Vanderburgh County, 22=University of Evansville area). When a sectional center facility's area crosses state lines, that facility is assigned separate three-digit prefixes for the states that it serves.

In some urban areas, like 462 for Marion County, Indiana, the three-digit prefix will often exist in one county, while, in rural and most suburban areas, the prefix will exist in multiple counties; for example, the neighboring 476 prefix is found in part or entirely in six counties: Gibson, Pike, Posey, Spencer, Vanderburgh, and Warrick. In some cases, an urban county may have more than one prefix. This is the case with Allen (467, 468), Lake (464, 463), St. Joseph (465, 466), and Vanderburgh (476, 477) counties. Cities like Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and New York City have multiple prefixes within their city limits. In some cases, these may be served from the same SCF, such as in San Diego County, California, where the three-digit prefixes 919 and 920 are used for suburban and rural communities, and 921 for the city of San Diego itself, although all three are processed through the same SCF.

Despite the geographic derivation of most ZIP Codes, the codes themselves do not represent geographic regions; in general, they correspond to address groups or delivery routes. As a consequence, ZIP Code "areas" can overlap, be subsets of each other, or be artificial constructs with no geographic area (such as 095 for mail to the Navy, which is not geographically fixed). In similar fashion, in areas without regular postal routes (rural route areas) or no mail delivery (undeveloped areas), ZIP Codes are not assigned or are based on sparse delivery routes, and hence the boundary between ZIP Code areas is undefined. For example, some residents in or near Haubstadt, Indiana, which has the ZIP Code 47639, have mailing addresses with 47648, the ZIP Code for neighboring Fort Branch, Indiana, while others living in or near Fort Branch have addresses with 47639. Many rural counties have similar logistical inconsistencies caused by the aforementioned sparse delivery routes, often known as Rural Routes or by some other similar designation.

Division and reallocation
Like area codes, ZIP Codes are sometimes divided and changed, especially when a rural area becomes suburban. Typically, the new codes become effective once announced, and a grace period (e.g., one year) is provided in which the new and old codes are used concurrently so that postal patrons in the affected area can notify correspondents, order new stationery, etc.

In rapidly growing communities, it is sometimes necessary to open a new sectional center facility, which must then be allocated its own three-digit ZIP-code prefix or prefixes. Such allocation can be done in various ways. For example, when a new sectional center facility was opened at Dulles Airport in Virginia, the prefix 201 was allocated to that facility; therefore, for all post offices to be served by that sectional center facility the ZIP Code changed from an old code beginning with 220 or 221 to a new code or codes beginning with 201. However, when a new sectional center facility was opened to serve Montgomery County, Maryland, no new prefix was assigned. Instead, ZIP Codes in the 207 and 208 ranges, which had previously been assigned alphabetically, were reshuffled so that 207xx ZIP Codes in the county was changed to 208xx codes, while 208xx codes outside that county were changed to 207xx codes. Because Silver Spring (whose postal area includes Wheaton) has its own prefix, 209, there was no need to apply the reshuffling to Silver Spring; instead, all mail going to 209xx ZIP Codes was simply rerouted to the new sectional center facility.

On the other hand, depopulation may cause a post office to close and its associated ZIP Code to be deallocated. For example, Centralia, Pennsylvania's ZIP Code, 17927, was retired in 2002, and ZIP Codes for Onoville (14764), Quaker Bridge (14771) and Red House (14773) in New York were prevented from going into use in 1964 in preparation for the Kinzua Dam's completion.

Delivery services
Delivery services other than the USPS, such as FedEx, United Parcel Service, and DHL, require a ZIP Code for optimal internal routing of a package.

Statistics
, there are 41,702 ZIP Codes in the United States. Due to convenience, ZIP Codes are used not only for tracking of mail, but also commonly for gathering geographical statistics in the United States by some researchers. ZIP Codes are not created for statistical analysis, thus use for statistical analysis is heavily criticized for numerous reasons and advised against as a cartographic practice. As ZIP Codes are not polygons, but collections of mail routes and points, they are unsuitable for publication or distribution of most data. Polygons for ZIP Codes are not released by the USPS and instead interpolated by 3rd party vendors. These interpolations introduce topological errors and are not standard between vendors. The USPS often discontinues, splits, or otherwise modifies ZIP Codes, making continuous space-time analysis challenging, leading to issues with both the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP) and modifiable temporal unit problem (MTUP). As the ZIP Codes are postal routing numbers, individuals and organizations without concrete spatial locations may be given their own number, making it impossible to associate demographic data with them. Demographic data is not consistent between ZIP Codes, and no effort is made to ensure they are proper enumeration units for analysis. As ZIP Codes are not made with the same considerations as other enumeration units, and is not possible without committing the ecological fallacy. This again becomes an issue with the MAUP. They have been found not to have significant correlations with health indicators, which can lead to poor conclusions. Despite these issues, ZIP Codes remain popular among researchers in fields such as public health due to their convenience, public familiarity with them, ability to anonymize subject addresses through aggregation, and possible ignorance of more appropriate enumeration units on the part of researchers.

In an attempt to satisfy demand " by data users for statistical data by ZIP Code area", the U.S. Census Bureau calculates approximate boundaries of ZIP Code areas, which it calls ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs). Statistical census data is then provided for these approximate areas. The geographic data provided for these areas includes the latitude and longitude of the center-point of the ZCTAs. ZIP Codes are inherently discrete or point-based data, as they are assigned only at the point of delivery, not for the spaces in between the delivery points. The United States Census Bureau then interpolates this discrete data set to create polygons by attempting to match ZIP Code extents with Census blocks. The resulting aerial units represent the approximate extent of the ZIP Code which are combined with to use for mapping and data presentation. The process of creating ZCTAs and their use for statistical analysis are heavily criticized in the literature. First, the creation of ZCTAs from Census blocks encounters issues when a Census block straddles multiple ZIP Codes. Addressing this is another instance of the MAUP, and the solution of dividing aggregate units between ZIP Codes causes some individuals to fall into ZCTAs that do not match their  ZIP Code. The creation of these units is therefore committing the ecological fallacy by attempting to disaggregate aggregate data. As ZIP Codes are not continuous, not everyone in the United States has one, and there are  ZIP Codes for non-populated or geographic areas, resulting in there not being one ZCTA for every ZIP Code. ZCTAs are not updated as frequently as the USPS updates ZIP Codes, resulting in further temporal analysis issues when  ZIP Codes change during a study period. Datasets providing a similar approximate geographic extent to ZCTA are commercially available. Despite these issues, ZCTAs are still very popular with researchers in fields like epidemiology, and among government agencies, with some states employing them to publish and distribute public health data during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Marketing
The data is often used in direct mail marketing campaigns in a process called ZIP-code marketing. Point-of-sale cashiers sometimes ask consumers for their home ZIP Codes. Besides providing purchasing-pattern data useful in determining the location of new business establishments, retailers can use directories to correlate this ZIP Code with the name on a credit card to obtain a consumer's full address and telephone number. ZIP-Coded data are also used in analyzing geographic factors in risk, an insurance and banking industry practice pejoratively known as redlining. This can cause problems, e.g., expensive insurance, for people living near a town with a high crime rate and sharing its ZIP Code, while they live in a relatively crime-free town. (See Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, above.)

California outlawed this practice in 2011.

Legislative districts
ZIP Codes may not currently be used to identify existing legislative districts. Although the website of the United States House of Representatives has a "Find Your Representative" feature that looks up congressional districts based on ZIP Codes alone, it often returns multiple districts corresponding to a single  ZIP Code. This is because different parts of one ZIP Code can be in different districts. One proposal to eliminate the possibility of extreme partisan gerrymandering calls on using ZIP Codes as the basic units for redistricting.

Internet
A 1978 proposal for a nationwide system of community networks suggested using ZIP Codes for routing.

ZIP Code data is an integral part of dealer / store locator software on many websites, especially brick-and-click websites. This software processes a user-input ZIP Code and returns a list of store or business locations, usually in the order of increasing distance from the center of the input ZIP Code. As the ZIP Code system is confined to the U.S. Postal network, websites that require ZIP Codes cannot register customers outside the United States. Many sites will purchase postal code data of other countries or make allowances in cases where the ZIP Code is not recognized.

ZIP Codes are regularly used on the Internet to provide a location in situations where an exact address is not necessary (or desirable) but the user's municipality or general location is needed. Examples (in addition to the store locator example listed above) include weather forecasts, television listings, local news, and online dating (most general-purpose sites, by default, search within a specified radius of a given ZIP Code, based on other users' entered ZIP Codes).

Credit card security
ZIP Codes are used in credit card authorization, specifically Address Verification System (AVS). When a merchant collects the entire address, the ZIP Code is an important part of AVS. In some cases, the ZIP Code is the only thing used for AVS, specifically where collecting a signature, or other information is infeasible, such as pay at the pump or vending machines.

title: ZIP Code


text:
Talk:Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Semi-protected edit request on 9 January 2024
In the first paragraph of the "Section 3" section, please change 'or given "aid and comfort to 'or "given aid or comfort, to match the actual text of the section. 2001:BB6:47ED:FA58:85B2:69:8BBB:FE63 (talk) 10:55, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ — Sirdog (talk) 17:26, 9 January 2024 (UTC)


text:
Ollolai

Ollolai is a comune at the centre of Barbagia, in the province of Nuoro (Sardinia, Italy). Its territory covers an area of 2734 ha.

It is the main town of the Barbagia di Ollolai.

Architecture
The main square of the village was created in the early 20th century by diverting the stream that crossed it. Inside it lies a church dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel, which contains paintings by Carmelo Floris in the apse as well as a crucifix painted by Franco Bussu, an inhabitant of Ollolai. The oldest part of the church is a chapel dedicated to St. Bartholomew. Near the town centre, there is another church dedicated to Anthony of Padua, where the Feast of Saint Anthony is traditionally held along with a lighting of a bonfire.

A few kilometres (miles) from the village towards the valley, there lies a church dedicated to Saint Peter, rebuilt in the 1970s after the demolition of a Romanesque church.

In a valley surrounded by granite peaks lies a church dedicated to Basil of Caesarea, built by the Basilian monks and used, after the expulsion of the Basilians, by the Franciscans. The adjoining convent was built later.

Water features
The town is abundant in water features. The most famous is Gupunnio, the source of which is in the centre of the village, and was recently renamed Regina Fontium. There is also the fountain of Su Sapunadorju, and a few hundred metres (feet) from the town, Su Puthu, which was once used as a watering hole.

People

 * Michele Columbu, leader of the Sardinian Action Party (Sardinian nationalist party)
 * Franco Columbu (no relation), two time Mr. Olympia
 * Arnold Schwarzenegger, honorary citizen of Ollolai

title: Ollolai


text:
Emilio Lussu

Emilio Lussu (4 December 1890 – 5 March 1975) was an Italian soldier, politician, anti-fascist, and writer.

The soldier
Lussu was born in Armungia, province of Cagliari (Sardinia) and graduated with a degree in law in 1914. Lussu married Joyce Salvadori, a notable poet, and member of the noble Paleotti family of the Marche, who were counts of Fermo. Prior to the entry of Italy into World War I, Lussu joined the army and was involved in several skirmishes. As a complementary officer of the Sassari Infantry Brigade in 1916 he was stationed on the Asiago Plateau. The brigade had arrived on the plateau in May 1916 to help in the Italian effort to stop the Austrian Spring offensive. In the month of June 1916 the brigade conquered Monte Fior, Monte Castelgomberto, Monte Spil, Monte Miela and Monte Zebio. After the war Lussu wrote the book A Year on the High Plateau (Un anno sull'altipiano) about his experiences of trench warfare on the Plateau. The 1970 movie Many Wars Ago ("Uomini contro") by Francesco Rosi is taken from this book.

Politics and exile
After the war Lussu, together with Camillo Bellieni, founded the Partidu Sardu-Partito Sardo d'Azione (Sardinian Action Party), that blended social-democratic ideas and Sardinian nationalism. The party took a formal position in 1921, opposing the increasing power of the Fascist movement. Lussu was elected to the Italian parliament in 1921 and, in 1924 was among the Aventine secessionists who withdrew from the Italian Parliament after the murder of Giacomo Matteotti.

Lussu's anti-Fascist position was, at the time, one of the most radical in Italy. Lussu was physically attacked and injured by unknown aggressors several times. In 1926, during one of these attacks (notably, the same day that Benito Mussolini suffered an attack in Bologna), Lussu shot one of the squadristi, in self-defense. He was arrested and tried; and was acquitted. However, he was re-tried by an administrative Fascist commission and sentenced to 5 years of confinement on the island of Lipari, near Sicily.

In 1929 Lussu escaped from his confinement and reached Paris. There, together with Gaetano Salvemini and Carlo Rosselli he formed Giustizia e Libertà (Justice and Freedom), an anti-Fascist movement that proposed revolutionary methods to upset the Italian Fascist Regime. While in exile came to be known as "Mister Mills".

In 1938 Lussu's novel Un anno sull'altipiano ("A Year on the Plateau"), was published in Paris. This thinly fictional account tells of the lives of soldiers during World War I and the trench warfare they encountered. Un anno sull'altipiano underlines, with chill rationalism, how the irrationalities of warfare affected the common man. Gifted with a keen sense of observation and sharp logic, Lussu demonstrates how distant the real life of soldiers is from everyday activities. In a notable passage, he describes the silent terror in the moments preceding an attack, as he is forced to abandon the "safe" protective trench for an external unknown, risky, undefined world: "All the machine-guns are waiting for us".

Return to Italy
Lussu took part in the civil war in Spain. Between 1941 and 1942 he was the protagonist of the most important "episode" of the collaboration between British Special Operations Executive and Italian antifascism in exile. He tried to get the clearance for an antifascist uprising in Sardinia, which the SOE supported at some stage but did not receive approval from the Foreign Office. He returned to Italy after the armistice of 1943 when joined the Resistenza and became the secretary of Partito d'Azione for southern Italy. He became the leader of the left wing of Partito d'Azione and later joined forces with the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). After World War II he served as the Minister for Post-War Assistance in the government of Ferruccio Parri and later as a minor minister in Alcide De Gasperi's government.

In 1964 Lussu separated from the PSI, creating the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity (PSIUP). Ideological differences with the political line of Partito Sardo d'Azione deepened and Lussu left Sardinia.

Lussu died in Rome in 1975.

Works
Many political meanings have been drawn from Lussu's works, but his works are perhaps more important at a personal level. Morally and philosophically, Lussu's books reflect his need to repent, having been previously an interventista (favourable to entering the war) and a revolutionary (in Giustizia e Libertà); his works soberly describe what war, in its cruellest moments, was like for him.

The alteration of Lussu's opinion of war is quite apparent in the range of his works: first an interventista, then the author of a manual for revolution, soon afterwards the author of a pacifist book, then again a revolutionary and a volunteer in the Spanish civil war. Anyway, A Year on the High Plateau combines well the repulse of the war with the bravery of the fighter. Lussu's consistency has been questioned and politics often invades evaluations of his works.

Honours and awards

 * Valor militare silver medal BAR.svg Silver Medal for Valor (Col del rosso, January 28th   1918)
 * Valor militare silver medal BAR.svg Silver Medal for Valor (Campo d'argine, June 16th 1918)
 * Valor militare bronze medal BAR.svg Bronze Medal for Valor (Altipiano di Asiago, July 1916)
 * Valor militare bronze medal BAR.svg Bronze Medal for Valor (November 1916)
 * Croce di guerra al merito BAR.svg War Merit Cross
 * Commemorative Italian-Austrian war medal BAR.svg Commemorative Medal for the Italo-Austrian War 1915–1918
 * Medaglia a ricordo dell'Unità d'Italia BAR.svg Commemorative Medal of the Unity of Italy
 * 218px ribbon bar of the Italian Order of Vittorio Veneto.svg Order of Vittorio Veneto
 * Allied Victory Medal BAR.svg Medaglia commemorativa italiana della vittoria

title: Emilio Lussu