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Why do I have 2 postcodes?


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After 10 years I have finally realised why my postcode is not always recognised on some websites or at the tills in some shops, it is because there is a second one that some systems will only recognise.

To explain but keeping some privacy we will pretend that I live in Ile de France.

The postcode that everyone uses, the Mairie all the inhabitants and the only one I knew of till recently lets pretend is 75600  which is shared by 35 other communes and the main local town although not all the communes of the communauté de communes. I always marvelled that letters would get to me with just my name and a postcode shared with probably 30000 other people.

Now I find that my village also has a second postcode, lets pretend is 75310 which is attributable only to my village.

All websites recognise the 75600 code postal and will bring up a list of communes, some like Brocobrac, most on line insurers and Brico-depot will not have my village listed which is awkward regarding insurance, now having found the other postcode 75310 I find that these sites have this one listed.

I have spoke to many local people who are perplexed and didnt know of the existence of the second postcode, suggestions have been that it may be because we have our own bureau of La Poste, also that the Airbus factory in the past had its own dedicated postcode, not a Cedex number but a seperate postcode, Google.fr informed me that this used to be done for large organisations.

Anyone else have 2 post codes or anyone know why my village and possibly others do?

Could not find an answer from Google France but probably didnt use the right search terms, if I search on code postal for my village it says that it is either 12345 or 54321

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More likely example would be 12345 or 12567, the 12 being the consistent use of the department number.

Aren't the numbers just the INSEE code vs canton post code?

Taking a local village, Tirepied, if you look at the bottom of the info box on the right of the screen, you get the INSEE code which precisely identifies a commune vs the postal code which identifies the canton.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirepied

http://www.insee.fr/fr/themes/tableau_local.asp?ref_id=POP&millesime=2010&nivgeo=COM&codgeo=50597

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Nothing to do with the Bureau de Poste. Our commune and at least three others in the canton have or had a bureau (ours has now been relegated to an add on to the village shop) and we all share the same post code.
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Yes the codes both start with my departement number, I used the fictional Paris ones for the examples.

Not the code Insee, that is seperate and I know it.

The first post code if researched on t'internet will only bring up my village, apparently the codes first 2 numbers are the department (which we know) and the final 3 are the number of the postal distribution centre, presumably in this case our local bureau de poste, except............ they dont deliver our letters, there is a large distribution centre about a mile away on the rocade that covers the whole area, any letters or parcels not signed for are dropped off at our own bureau de poste.

The second potscode brings up a whole long list of communes that I think are all served by the distribution centre and perhaps that is the reason why we have a second number because we have our own La poste, we are the second largest village in the canton.

In 10 years 100% of the letters that have been delivered to me have carried the second post code common with all the other villages, I have never seen the unique one, I only found it by research.

The main town has a La Poste, I will check to see if they have a second postcode.

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ROFL! So, out of curiosity, I typed "Pourquoi est-ce que ma maison a deux codes postaux?"

And after reading through what Google threw up (all irrelevant and useless) I get to suggestion no. 4 which was headed "Comment identifier un pedophile?"

No, I have no idea either.....
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