The Universal Postal Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations and facilitates a uniform worldwide postal system. It comprises 192 member states and is headquartered in Bern, Switzerland.
The UPU Monument (Weltpostdenkmal) in Bern, bronze and granite, by René de Saint-Marceaux (1909), the five continents join to transmit messages around the globe, later adopted (1967) as the organization's logo
Heinrich von Stephan, German Postmaster-General and founder of the General Postal Union
100 years of UPU commemorated on a US postage stamp
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal systems have generally been established as a government monopoly, with a fee on the article prepaid. Proof of payment is usually in the form of an adhesive postage stamp, but a postage meter is also used for bulk mailing.
A postman collecting mail for delivery
Many early post systems consisted of fixed courier routes. Here, a post house on a postal route in the 19th century Finland
The use of the Scinde Dawk adhesive stamps to signify the prepayment of postage began on 1 July 1852 in the Scinde/Sindh district, as part of a comprehensive reform of the district's postal system.
China 4-cent on 100-dollar silver overprint of 1949