On July 1, 1963, the U.S. Post Office Department introduced the ZIP code program to get a handle on the heaping surplus of mail. Today, those five digits represent much more for American society. Back ...

It's very easy to chalk up certain facets of our lives to just being "the way it's always been." From daylight savings time to time zones, most of us don't even give a second thought to the meaning ...

The House passed two bills Monday night that would authorize the U.S. Postal Service to create 76 new ZIP codes for communities nationwide. This is not the first proposed ZIP code upgrade. In December ...

The humble ZIP Code shows up in all kinds of surprising places. Planet Money looks at how it was born, how it transformed the mail and talks to one researcher who argues that it's gone too far. The ...

These days, we’re all accustomed to using the ubiquitous five-digit ZIP code. But it wasn’t always so. In fact, there were no ...