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China POSTAL SERVICES
Postal service is administered by the Ministry of Posts and
Telecommunications, which was established in 1949 and reestablished
in 1973 after a two-year period during which the postal and
telecommunications functions had been separated and the ministry
downgraded to a subministerial level. Although postal service in
China goes back some 2,500 years, modern postal services were not
established until 1877 by the Qing government. Development was
slow; by 1949 there was only 1 post office for every 370 square
kilometers.
Since then the postal service has grown rapidly. In 1984 China
had 53,000 post and telecommunications offices and 5 million
kilometers of postal routes, including 240,000 kilometers of
railroad postal routes, 624,000 kilometers of highway postal
routes, and 230,000 kilometers of airmail routes. By 1985 post
offices were handling 4.7 billion first-class letters and 25
billion newspapers and periodicals. In 1987, after a six-year
hiatus, six-digit postal codes were ordered to be put into use.
Data as of July 1987
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