I live in Edinburgh, Scotland. What is my zip code?
Oh, silly. In the United Kingdom, which I’m sure you know encompasses England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; they do not have zip codes but instead postcodes that are assigned by the Royal Mail. A postcode is alphanumeric and is divided into two parts termed the inward and the outward. The outward code is the first part of the postcode and shows the destination area of the letter, and the inward code is the second part of the postcode and guides the letter from the final sorting office to its delivery point. The outward code is divided into letters that describe the postal county or area and numbers that describe the post town or district. An inward code consists of the number, showing the sector or dependent locality, and the final two letters indicate the street. Every UK address is kept on a Royal Mail database called the postcode address file but typically referred to as the PAF. The letters in the outward code typically give clues to its geographical location. In Edinburgh
