Postcodes in Australia - Geography

Geography

Australian postcodes are sorting information. They are often linked with one area (e.g. 6160 belongs only to Fremantle, Western Australia). But sometimes they can be quite complex, especially in country areas (e.g. 2570 belongs to twenty-two towns and suburbs around Camden, New South Wales). The south-western Victoria 3221 postcode of the Geelong Mail Centre also includes twenty places around Geelong with very few people. This means that mail for these places is not fully sorted until it gets to Geelong. Some postcodes cover large populations (e.g., postcode 4350 serving some 100,000 people in Toowoomba), while other postcodes have much smaller populations, even in urban areas. Australian postcodes range from 0200 (for the Australian National University) to 9944 (Cannonvale, Queensland).

Some towns and suburbs have two postcodes — one for street deliveries and one for post office boxes. For example, a street address in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta would be written like this:

Mr John Smith

99 George Street

PARRAMATTA NSW 2150

But mail sent to a PO Box in Parramatta would be addressed:

Mr John Smith

PO Box 99

PARRAMATTA NSW 2124

Many big businesses, government departments and other institutions receive large volumes of mail. They can have their own postcode as a Large Volume Receiver (LVR), e.g. the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital has the postcode 4029. More postcode ranges were made available for LVRs in the 1990s.