Tag:amenity=post_office
 amenity = post_office
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A place where letters and parcels may be sent or collected. 
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| Group: amenities |
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| Status: de facto |
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A post office which offers public-facing services such as sending or collecting letters or parcels, sale of stamps, ... Not to be confused with post_office=post_partner, amenity=parcel_locker or amenity=post_depot.
How to map
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- Businesses that only act as a relay point to some postal service(s) should be tagged with post_office=post_partner instead.
- Automated parcel lockers providing self-service pickup/sending should be tagged with amenity=parcel_locker instead.
Set a node or draw as an area along the post office outline. Add the tag amenity=post_office, post_office=* and name=*.
Tags used in combination
- name=* - if it has a particular name.
- brand=* - brand of the postal service provider: Name Suggestion Index
- operator=* - if a company other than the postal service provider operates the post office facility: Name Suggestion Index
- post_office=* - namespace with serveral information about the type and services of the post office.
- ref=* - could be used if there is a identifying number of the post-agency.
- ref:FR:LaPoste=* - is used in France for the public post offices operated by La Poste, or shops and public amenities working under contract with La Poste.
- atm=yes - could be used if there is a automated teller machine present. However, if possible, you should try to place a separate amenity=atm node.
- change_machine=yes - could be used if there is a automated change machine present.
- amenity=vending_machine + vending=stamps - if possible, you should try to place in a separate node.
Potential data source
In case of using external data - please ensure that its compatible with OSM license (sometimes public data published by government has restrictions making it not usable!).
Also, please be aware about Import/Guidelines before importing any data.
France
A list of postal public facilities has been released by the French Government initiative for Open Data. Locations indicated in this file seems to be the result of geocoding, and appear to be of variable quality (from very precise to obviously wrong). This is very valuable input, but it cannot be imported without checking and comparisons from other sources.
However, most post offices have been mapped individually as these are well-known places in cities, and there are not many post offices (frequently not even one per municipality, except large cities that may have several). Most post offices in France are indicated by traffic direction signs; you can't really miss one (except possibly specific postal facilities for businesses or internal buildings for shipping/delivery only, not open to the public).
As many post offices in small villages are now closing, they are replaced by postal services hosted in local shops or other public services: they are more difficult to locate because these services are in other kinds of shops/services (e.g. in oil stations/garages, food shops, cafés, tobacco and newspaper/magazine sellers, ink cartridge sellers, mobile phone sellers, photography studios, hairdressers, or sometimes in the town hall of small villages...) and are no longer separate public amenities. You can use post_office=post_partner in that case. These postal "contact points" are serviced internally by another remote postal facility, not open to the public. All these points do not have a separate postal code (postal codes in France are assigned to central post offices for the final delivery to homes or to postal "contact points", and not necessarily to individual municipalities; specific "CEDEX" codes are also assigned to businesses with large volumes of incoming mails and needing special delivery independently of the actual location of the businesses using these special codes for mails sent to their internal business services). As a result, not all postal codes have their own "post office" amenity open to the public in their area of service (they only have one or more "contact points").
India
All India Pincode directory has been released by the Indian Government in the Open Government Data Platform under National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) . This data contains Post office name with pincodes, officetype, postal division, region, district, etc.,.
Note that this data appears to be licensed under likely compatible license.
United Kingdom
In January 2018, a long-running FOI and RoPSIR request by User:Rjw62 finally yielded a list of Post Office branches, complete with addresses, postcodes and opening times, that is available to be used in OSM under the Open Government Licence v3 (ODBL compatible!). Tools to help compare and improve the corresponding OSM data area available from https://osm.mathmos.net/postoffice/.
United States
United States Post Offices
The United States Postal Service operates Post Offices and Post Office stations and also contracts with merchants to operate Post Office stations with more limited services.
Works by the USPS are subject to copyright protection, unlike those by U.S. federal government agencies, so do not use the USPS locator tool to find post office locations or as a primary source for post office addresses and ZIP codes.
Fortunately, the public domain GNIS database contains many post offices and is more likely to contain a post office the longer it has been in operation. Most GNIS post office entries were imported in 2009, but GNIS continued to be updated for several years after that with new post offices or updated locations. Use the GeoNames search tool to find post offices in a particular area. Each feature's page contains coordinates that you can copy-paste into your editor to pinpoint the location. Many entries also contain alternative names and a mailing address including the ZIP+4 extension. To find post offices to add, filter by the Feature Class "Post Office" and your county, then sort in descending order by date created. (The sorting does not account for post offices that have moved since the import, even if GNIS has been updated with the new coordinates.) Note that GNIS contains many historical features and plenty of outdated information, so try to verify the information against aerial and street-level imagery where available.
The post office's own mailing address can be tagged according to the usual scheme. However, many post offices serve additional ZIP codes, either for nearby areas or for specific purposes such as the P.O. boxes in the post office's lobby. Moreover, the post office's addr:postcode=* tag should ideally include the post office's ZIP+4 extension, but that does not mean the post office serves only the address(es) with that extension. It has been proposed that the older postal_code=* tag be used to indicate all the ZIP codes served by the post office.
Tagging suggestions:
- name=* should ideally contain the local branch name, e.g. "Springfield Post Office" or "Hyde Park Station Post Office". Many post offices display the branch name and a ZIP code under the "United States Post Office" sign out front. You can use "United States Post Office" if you don't know the specific name.
- If the lobby has different opening hours than the retail counter, use conditions such as opening_hours=Mo-Fr 08:00-17:00; Sa 08:00-16:00 open "Lobby" || Mo-Fr 09:00-17:00; Sa 09:00-16:00 open "Retail".
- Tag collection_times=* on the post office or its individual collection boxes to indicate the facility's collection times.
- Many post offices have drive-up USPS and FedEx collection boxes out front. Tag them as amenity=post_box + drive_through=yes with the appropriate brand=* brand:wikidata=*.
- Every post office is required to fly an American flag in front (sometimes with a POW/MIA flag). [1] If the flag is hoisted on a freestanding or rooftop pole, map a man_made=flagpole with flag:type=national or flag:type=national;organisation.
- Use access=customers on the customer parking lot and access=private on the parking lot reserved for mail delivery vehicles.
Commercial mail delivery offices
Commercial parcel carriers such as UPS and FedEx operate retail locations that function much like post offices, replete with personal mailboxes, and thus are also tagged amenity=post_office. Distinguish these stores from USPS locations using the name=*, operator=*, and brand=* keys (as well as operator:wikidata=* and brand:wikidata=*.
See also
- amenity=post_depot - A distribution centre or sorting office for letters and parcels.
- amenity=post_box - A box to deposit outgoing postal items.
- amenity=letter_box - Private mailboxes where mailmen or other people deposit letters to specific addresses.
- post_office=* - sub-key of amenity=post_office specifying the type of post office.
- office=logistics - An office for a forwarder / hauler.
- office=courier - for cargo companies like UPS, FedEx, DHL...
- Transport