Canadian Postal Codes - Alternate Uses

Alternate Uses

Postal codes can be correlated with databased information from censuses or health registries to create a geographic profile of an area's population. For instance, postal codes have been used to compare children's risk of developing cancer and to describe a neighbourhood's entrenched poverty (e.g. "Vancouver's Downtown Eastside is Canada's poorest postal code").

As Canadian electoral districts frequently follow postal code areas, citizens can identify their local elected representative using their postal code. Provincial and federal government websites offer an online "look-up" feature based on postal codes. Although A1A 1A1 is sometimes displayed as a generic code for this purpose, it is actually a genuine postal code in use in the Lower Battery, St. John's Harbour, Newfoundland. Another common "example" code in Canada Post materials, K1A 0B1, is the valid code for Place de la Poste, the Canada Post Place office building in Ottawa.

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