World Post Day - 9 October 2007

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8 October 2007

Tuesday 9 October 2007 is World Post Day. The day has been celebrated each year on 9 October, since 1969, to mark the anniversary of the Universal Postal Union’s (UPU) establishment in 1874.

The UPU has 191 member countries, including Australia, and is the second oldest international organisation after the international telecommunication union.

Did you know?

The first known postal document was found in Egypt and dates from 225BC.
In Australia, postal services began in 1809 when a former convict called Isaac Nicholls was appointed postmaster to the colony of New South Wales.
82 per cent of the world’s population benefits from home mail deliveries.
Australia Post delivers to just over 10 million address points around the country.
Each day, 1.2 billion letters are posted, representing 431 billion domestic items per annum handled by postal administrations around the world. Six billion parcels are sent by post annually – around 16 million each day.
Australia Post staff process around 21 million items of mail each day – 5.42 billion mail articles each year.
Postal services employ close to 5.5 million people making it one of the largest employers in the world.
Australia Post employs almost 35,000 people. Our extended family of licensed post office operators, community postal agents, mail and parcel contractors swells the population by a further 10,000 people.
There are more than 665,000 permanent post offices worldwide, making postal institutions one of the most extensive networks on the planet.
Australia Post has 4,462 post offices across Australia – 2,563 in rural and remote areas. The retail network – the largest in Australia – serves 1.1 million customers each business day.
Australia’s basic postage rate is one of the lowest in the world. The US rate is equivalent to 51 cents, the UK 67 cents, Japan 88 cents and Switzerland $1.17.
Australia Post has a long history of innovation and world firsts – the first country to introduce pre-paid postage (1838); the world’s first pictorial stamp issue called ‘Sydney Views’ was issued in 1849; the first country to implement a four digit postcode system (1967); the first country to launch Personalised Stamps (1999).