Writing a 5-digit ZIP code at the end of your mailing address may seem commonplace, but it wasn’t always that way. The United States Postal Service first introduced 5-digit ZIP codes on July 1, 1963, 48 years ago today. (As a side note: ZIP actually stands for Zoning Improvement Plan.)
To commemorate this milestone in mailing, we asked museum visitors to post their zip codes on our TalkBack Board today in Flag Hall.
We collected all of these zip codes and created this map, showing the wide variety of places from which our visitors travelled to get to the National Museum of American History. Our visitors really are what make us a national (and international!) museum.
How far (or near) have you travelled to visit us? If you can’t make it to the museum, you can add your voice to the discussion here.