Contact Information

What is it?    Where do I find it?     How can the U.S. postal service help me?

When you write a letter, you need to know where to send it.  This is called the contact information for the person or business to whom you are writing. 

For mailing a letter, contact information includes all of the following:

• Recipient's name
  • For a friendly letter, you may also need:
    • an apartment number,
    • and/or the name of the person/department/organization who can get the letter to your intended recipient (this is when the letter will be sent "in the care of" someone other than the letter recipient; this is noted with "C/O" for "care of")
  • For a business letter, you may also need:
    • the title of the person to whom you are writing,
    • the name of the department to which you are writing,
    • the name of the person/department/organization who can get the letter to your intended recipient (this is when the letter will be sent "in the care of" someone other than the letter recipient; this is noted with "C/O" for "care of"),
    • the name of the building in which the business is located,
    • and/or the floor on which the business is located
• a street address or P.O. Box
• A city
• A state (written as a postal abbreviation)
• A ZIP code

Where do I find an address?

For a friendly letter, you probably have the address of the person to whom you want to write.  If not, get in touch with them and ask them where you should send their letter.  Some people use post office boxes (P.O. Boxes) instead of street addresses - these are mail boxes located at the post office that you can rent if you do not want mail to come to your house, or if you want all your mail to be sent to one central location if you do not have a single street address. 

For a business letter, you want the company's MAILING ADDRESS, which may be different than their location (or street address).  Many companies have special locations just for receiving mail which may not be in their headquarters building.  You can find addresses for businesses in many locations:

• On a web site -- most companies have a "Contact Us" page which lists one or more of the following:
  • mailing address
  • email address
  • phone number
• On the product
• In a Business Almanac
• In the phone book (works best for local businesses)
• Ask an employee
• Call or email the company and ask for a MAILING ADDRESS (not a street address)

The United States Postal Service

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has a website at www.usps.com.  This web site offers lots of services, from helping you find information to helping you ship letters and packages.

They can help you find a ZIP code if you have the other parts of the address.

They can help you find a state postal abbreviation or an abbreviation for "street", "avenue," and other thoroughfare titles.   

You can also find out how much postage is, both by stamp prices (which change frequently) and by the weight of your letter or package (the more it weighs, the more it costs to send).