| | INDEX | REFERENCES | LINKS | |	Postal History of Imperial China

China was one of the earliest countries to begin a communication system. About some 2,500 years ago, China already had an efficient postal system at that time. However, until late 19th century, China had not yet established a government operated postal system to serve the country and her people. There were several postal systems and many postal organizations existed in China concurrently that not only caused inconvenience for the general public but also infringed the sovereignty of China.

Major postal setups operated in China around 1896

• ICHAN / 驿站 - government operated courier network that delivered only governments official and military documents.
• LETTER HONG / 民信局 - private operated postal services that mainly handled Chinese mails for commercial and civil purposes.
• LOCAL POST / 商埠邮局 - municipal postal services operated by alien residents autonomies in treaty ports that served foreigners local and inter treaty ports mail matters.
• GUEST POST / 客邮局 - alien postal organizations in China operated by Western Powers that mainly served foreigners correspondents between China and foreign countries.
• CUSTOMS POST / 海关邮局 - postal system operated by the Customs House that provide postal service on a trial basis. Although the operation was limited to treaty ports and cities where there were customs offices, Customs Post was the embryo of modern Chinese postal service, which laid foundation for the Post of China.

  (After the Customs Post transformed into Imperial Post, all the Local Post offices closed in 1897. The rest of the postal setups still operated until some time of the Republic period. The Chinese Imperial Post had been growing under competition with private letter hongs and foreign postal organizations as well as cooperation with them.)

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Postal History of Imperial China