Number of Possible Postal Codes
No postal code includes the letters D, F, I, O, Q, or U, as the OCR equipment used in automated sorting could easily confuse them with other letters and digits, especially when they are rendered as cursive handwriting. The letters W and Z are used, but are not currently used as the first letter. This scheme allows for a maximum 3,600 FSAs: with 2,000 possible LDUs in each FSA, there is a theoretical maximum of 7.2 million codes. The practical maximum is a bit lower, as Canada Post reserves some FSAs for special functions, such as for test or promotional purposes, as well as for sorting mail bound for destinations outside Canada. The current Statistics Canada estimate of over 850,000 active postal codes represents about 12% of the entire postal code "space", leaving more than ample room for expansion.
Read more about this topic: Postal Codes In Canada
Famous quotes containing the words number of, number, postal and/or codes:
“Even in ordinary speech we call a person unreasonable whose outlook is narrow, who is conscious of one thing only at a time, and who is consequently the prey of his own caprice, whilst we describe a person as reasonable whose outlook is comprehensive, who is capable of looking at more than one side of a question and of grasping a number of details as parts of a whole.”
—G. Dawes Hicks (1862–1941)
“A good marriage ... is a sweet association in life: full of constancy, trust, and an infinite number of useful and solid services and mutual obligations.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“This is the Night Mail crossing the Border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner, the girl next door.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“We must trust infinitely to the beneficent necessity which shines through all laws. Human nature expresses itself in them as characteristically as in statues, or songs, or railroads, and an abstract of the codes of nations would be an abstract of the common conscience.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)