page_title: Post office
section_title: Un-staffed postal facilities
hierarchical_section_title: Post office / Un-staffed postal facilities
caption_attribution_description: English: A mailroom in an American University
context_page_description: A post office is a public facility that provides mail services, including accepting of letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may also offer additional services, which vary by country. These include providing and accepting government forms, processing government services and fees, and postal savings or banking services. The chief administrator of a post office is called a postmaster.
  Prior to the advent of postal codes and ZIP codes, postal systems would route items to a specific post office for receipt or delivery. During the nineteenth-century in the United States, this often led to smaller communities being renamed after their post offices, particularly after the Post Office Department began requiring that post office names not be duplicated within a state.
context_section_description: In many jurisdictions, mail boxes and post office boxes have long been in widespread use for drop-off and pickup (respectively) of mail and small packages outside post offices or when offices are closed. Deutsche Post introduced the Pack-Station for package delivery (both drop-off and pickup) in 2001.  In the 2000s, the United States Postal Service began to install Automated Postal Centers (APCs) in many locations both in post offices (for when they are closed or busy) and in retail locations.  APCs can print postage and accept mail and small packages.
caption: Students attend an un-staffed postal facility
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