Why ZIP Codes Are the Way They Are, and How to Do It Better

Yes, it's a video about snail mail, so I went into this wondering how it would be relevant or interesting. It's from CGP Grey, who can make the most mundane subject fascinating, and he does manage to make us care about ZIP codes by revealing their internal logic that you didn't know about.

Most countries use postal codes, but they use a variety of systems to assign those codes and make them work. Americans have a vague notion that our ZIP codes are geographic, but that's only part of the story. The Postal Service has their own geography that no one outside the industry understands. It works, but it's a system that was launched in 1963 designed for mail that was hand-sorted. Halfway through this video, we switch from the US system to the Irish postal system, which is designed for machine-sorting and will blow your mind. It's totally ingenious and has a lot of benefits, up until the moment the power goes out.


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