Postal code "places"

[Docere]

All North York addresses that weren't Don Mills, Willowdale, Downsview or Weston were given "Toronto" addresses. This includes much of the territory south of the 401, such as Lawrence Manor.

North York never had as "hard" a boundary as Scarborough or Etobicoke and in some cases shares FSAs with the old city of Toronto. That's long been the case with federal ridings too.

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by Docere

All North York addresses that weren't Don Mills, Willowdale, Downsview or Weston were given "Toronto" addresses. This includes much of the territory south of the 401, such as Lawrence Manor.

North York never had as "hard" a boundary as Scarborough or Etobicoke and in some cases shares FSAs with the old city of Toronto. That's long been the case with federal ridings too.

My cousins lived in Lawrence Park and the boundary split residential streets in odd places all through there. It made no sense since it was all a single residential development. You could tell what was North York because the sidewalks would end randomly - Toronto provided them but Twp. of North York didn’t.

[Andy6]

The post office was a mighty institution and I don’t think it gave a hoot how some lowly provincial politicians divided up their territory.

[Acajack]

Not long after five municipalities merged to form Gatineau in 2002, we were subjected to a PR campaign from the new city administration saying that the old city names would no longer be recognized by Canada Post's sorting machines, and that everyone had to use Gatineau as their address and stop using Hull, Aylmer, Buckingham, Masson-Angers.

And pretty much everyone followed suit.

But it's interesting how in other merged municipalities both in Quebec (Montreal, Quebec City) and also in Ottawa, the old municipality names and even place names of non-municipalities (Orleans, Barrhaven) are still in use and people still get their mail anyway.

I did a check and many institutions such as schools in Ottawa still use the old names, whereas in Gatineau the old names are nowhere to be found.

[Acajack]

In any event, it doesn't really matter which municipal name you use because the postal code alone is generally precise down to the segment of the street you're on, and whether it's an odd or even number.

So basically you could write

#126
J8Z 1W7 OUAGADOUGOU CANADA

And the mail would still get to you.

[vid]

Rural Thunder Bay has "P0T" postal codes, and the village beside us has the postal code "P0T 2G0" which is a wasted opportunity with Ontario's mail-order marijuana industry just 8 weeks away. Chances are though, their municipality will vote against having marijuana retail in their boundaries. Upsala has "P0T 2Y0". Ignace's postal code is "P0T1T0" which sounds like a great name for those wee potatoes you put in stew.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

All of ours start with A. Mine in Rabbittown is A1C.



Unincorporated communities would generally use the unofficial name of the community, and the peninsula or bay. "New Bonaventure, Trinity Bay" or "New Bonaventure, Bonavista Peninsula", etc. A couple of times a year there's a story here about a letter addressed to something like "Nan, across the bay from Epworth, yellow house" actually making it. Out around the bay it's mostly P.O. boxes. In much of the city as well, though they couldn't find anywhere to put them in the core so most rowhouse areas still have door-to-door delivery.

Newfoundland has tons of small places with their own postal code (and many with their own post offices as well), even though these places have officially disappeared because of amalgamation and are no longer on most maps (Badgers Quay, Brookfield, Wesleyville, Newtown, are just some of those, and there would be too many to list). In NL, the existence of a rural post office is the best indicator of an identifiable community.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_of_Canada:_A

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by esquire

Docere is referring to postal codes assigned to "towns" that don't actually exist other than as a Canada Post fiction... there is no town of Agincourt, ON.

There was actually a local news story recently about some folks south of Winnipeg frustrated by their rural route address changing to some kind of nonexistent town name... wish I could post the link but I can't find it.

Well, some of them really were towns that existed in the past, like for Toronto, Willowdale, Agincourt ON etc. but their boundaries seem to be fictions invented for ease of mail delivery -- these boundaries do not seem to correspond to the way the early settlers organized their town, nor the current neighborhoods that they give their name to.

Originally Posted by Docere

I know this is increasingly falling out of use, but here's some for Toronto.

When did these things fall out of favour? Is it just the more elderly generation that still uses them? My parents and some family members in the outer 416 of Toronto still continue to send mail to me with them written down wherever I am, whether I'm living outside Canada or not, and my mom was not stopped writing Willowdale, ON, Canada instead of North York, ON or even Toronto ON, (I grew up in North York around the area closer to the 404, or near the Scarborough border, than to Yonge street and was really confused as to why that was "Willowdale" until I figured out the postal village thing).

Whenever I send mail back I only ever write Toronto, ON (by the time I was old enough to send and receive letters, and prior to the internet age taking over snail mail and amalgamation, I just was old enough to recall writing down by hand North York, ON most of my pre-adult years where I grew up, but I never learned to use the village names like Willowdale, Don Mills, Rexdale etc.). Is this kind of like how places in NYC are treated as if they are their own cities at a really small scale, like say Jamaica, NY is used rather than the boroughs or just NYC itself as a "place"?

[Capsicum]

I find it interesting how "fuzzy" neighbourhoods, villages and communities are, and how locals don't even agree. Political boundaries might say one thing, ridings, postal codes, informal feel can all play into where things start and end.

[ghYHZ]

I live in Antigonish NS ‘B2G’. I’ve been in my home for 20 years and haven’t moved but according to Canada Post I’ve lived in 3 different communities in that period of time: Antigonish, South River Road and now Lower South River.

When they ‘moved’ us to South River Road about 10 years ago…they told us to update our address with banks, utilities etc. Well that new Postal Code wasn’t in the Canada Post system for several months and the bank wouldn’t update the address as it didn’t exist.

In the last Federal Riding Redistribution….the dividing line is now the centre of South River. On the east side is the riding of 'Cape Breton-Canso’. I’m on the west side in the riding of ‘Central-Nova’…..but since the original Lower South River Post Office location was in ‘Cape Breton-Canso’…..I get newsletters/flyers from an MP who doesn’t even represent me!

Don’t you just love Canada Post!

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by Architype

Newfoundland has tons of small places with their own postal code (and many with their own post offices as well), even though these places have officially disappeared because of amalgamation and are no longer on most maps (Badgers Quay, Brookfield, Wesleyville, Newtown, are just some of those, and there would be too many to list). In NL, the existence of a rural post office is the best indicator of an identifiable community.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_of_Canada:_A

True but to me it's the existing municipalities that don't really exist. Does anyone actually say they're from/in New-Wes-Valley? I wouldn't. I'd say I was in Newtown, Wesleyville, or Valleyview - depending on which I was in. They're not even physically connected or run into each other. Same with Centreville, Wareham, and Trinity. Even Conception Bay South, though it does have something of a combined identity now, is still very obviously Topsail, Manuels, etc. People know which they're from/in.

[RWin]

Originally Posted by Denscity

All of BC is V afaik.

Castlegar V1N
Nelson V1L
Trail V1R

That is correct. Vancouver is not the centre of the universe.

[SpongeG]

M4y 2n9

[Trevor3]

I've sent mail to clients before addressed to "Person", General Delivery, Sheaves Cove, AON ___. Then rely on 'knowledge sorting' of the local post office to get it to that person. All the rural communities around here have Box #, Site #, RR # addresses, but good luck ever finding them unless you know someone personally.

Never fails.

[Loco101]

For within city limits of Timmins ON:

Timmins (city centre, Mountjoy and Kamiskotia): P4N, P4P, P4R

Schumacher, South Porcupine, Porcupine, Connaught: P0N

Ever since I remember, the old Town of Timmins and areas to the West have home delivery whereas areas to the East have mailboxes. But no box numbers are used anymore. Each box at the post offices have house addresses on them.

[blacktrojan3921]

This gives a good layout of the postal codes.

I live in Regina, so obviously the codes will begin with S. Something I did notice though is that the first number is entirely dependent on which area you live in. So back with Regina, every postal code within the city and the RM of Sherwood always starts with S4. And yes, there are no postal codes for D, F, I, O, Q nor U.

http://www.geonames.org/postal-codes...katchewan.html

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by RWin

That is correct. Vancouver is not the centre of the universe.

Silly, that would start with the letter M.

[Acajack]

Classic postal code joke among francophone kids:

G1Q 1Q9

[vid]

Toronto's gay community really missed out on an opportunity by not being located in the M4M FSA.

[Laceoflight]

...and technically, Santa lives in Montréal : H0H 0H0.