UPU says snail mail still going strong

The United Nations Universal Postal Union (UPU) reports despite stiff competition from electronic communications, snail mail is still going strong.

In its worldwide statistics for 2006, the Berne, Switzerland-based UPU reported that with a total traffic of 433 billion mail items, domestic letter-post traffic rose slightly compared to the year before, while international mail was down two per cent.

The statistics were gathered from responses to a UPU questionnaire, to which 163 out of the 191 UPU member states responded.

The survey showed that the Swiss send the largest number of letters – 713 letters annually – while the Japanese send the most parcels, some 18.1 yearly.

The UPU also found that the world’s postal services employ more than 5.5 billion people. Vanuatu has the smallest postal staff globally with 37 employees, while with 796,199 employees, the United States has the largest.

With four post offices, the Vatican has the fewest number of them, while India, with the most, has 155,333.

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Pictured above is one of the winners of the 2006 New Zealand Best Letterbox competition. To see more, click here.