Europe era Type B
pillar postbox in
Hull|thumb|upright In 1653, the first post boxes are believed to have been installed in and around Paris. By 1829, post boxes were in use throughout France. The first public post boxes in Poland were installed in
Warsaw in 1842. A post box originally installed in the wall of the Wakefield Post Office is dated 1809 and is believed to be the oldest example in Britain. It is now on display at the
Wakefield Museum. In Britain, the first red
pillar postboxes were erected in
Guernsey in 1852. Roadside wall boxes first appeared in 1857 as a cheaper alternative to pillar boxes, especially in rural districts. In 1853 the first pillar box in the United Kingdom was installed at Botchergate,
Carlisle. In 1856,
Richard Redgrave of the Department of Science and Art designed an ornate pillar box for use in London and other large cities. In 1859 the design was improved, and this became the first National Standard pillar box. Green was adopted as the standard colour for the early Victorian post boxes. Between 1866 and 1879 the hexagonal Penfold post box became the standard design for pillar boxes and it was during this period that red was first adopted as the standard colour. The first boxes to be painted red were in London in July 1874, although it would be nearly 10 years before all the boxes had been repainted. In 2012, to celebrate
Olympic gold medals for
Team GB,
selected boxes were painted gold. The first public letter boxes (post boxes) in Russia appeared in 1848 in St. Petersburg. They were made of wood and iron. Because these boxes were lightweight and easily stolen, they disappeared frequently; later boxes were made of cast iron and could weigh up to . In March 2025,
Post Danmark announced it was quitting the letter delivery business at the end of 2025, and as so remove all the post boxes in Denmark. The 1200 post boxes in question would be sold off to collectors, with the money going charity. Paris musee de la poste c. 1850.jpg|First Paris Street letter box from c. 1850 Lamp_Box_2019.jpeg|A
Queen Elizabeth II Lamp Box post box of the circa-1954 pattern in
Eaves, Lancashire 1977 pattern French wall box at the Colne Valley Postal History Museum, Essex.jpg|French wall box of the 1977 pattern now on display at the Colne Valley Postal History Museum,
Essex Brievenbussen Post-NL.jpg|A Dutch "
Post-NL" postbox in orange at different heights Mailbox Metropolin in Estonia.jpg|Modern postbox in
Estonia Mailbox in Ustroń, Poland.jpg|Modern postbox in
Poland Yaiza Playa Blanca - Plaza de la Marina 02 ies.jpg|Post box in
Lanzarote, (
Canary Islands),
Spain Boîte aux lettres à Mons en Belgique - vrijstaande brievenbus in Mons België - Foto Wolfgang Pehlemann IMG 1684.jpg|Post box in
Belgium Priority Postbox for COVID-19 testing - 2020-11-25 - Andy Mabbett - 01.png|"Priority Postbox", designated for returning
COVID-19 home testing kits, Birmingham, England, November 2020 File:PrivatePOstBoxYork.jpg|A note attached to an old private posting box in St John University (
York) File:Edward VII Pillar Box, Arran Quay, Dublin, Ireland - geograph.org.uk - 2566679.jpg|Edward VII Pillar Box,
Arran Quay,
Dublin Asia The post box arrived in the late 19th century Hong Kong and were made of wood. In the 1890s, metal pillar box appeared in Hong Kong and remained in use until the late 1990s. From the 1890s to 1997 the boxes were painted red and after 1997 were painted green. Postbox Uji Japan shaped as tea caddy.jpg|A public (though unconventional) post box in Japan shaped as tea caddy Japan Post Angle Model 10 Mailbox.jpg|Japanese post box in
Matsuda HK SOHO Mail Box 318.jpg|
Singapore AA style sheet metal mail box in Hong Kong Hong Kong Post street posting box number 110.jpg|Hong Kong Post box bearing insignia of King George V HKPostbox.jpg|PB27/1 type post box in Hong Kong with "EIIR" cypher Post boxes in Gongguan, Taipei City 20070723.jpg|Post boxes in
Taipei, Taiwan L164 - Boîte aux lettres - Inde.JPG|A post box in
India North America The
United States Post Office Department began installing public mail collection boxes in the 1850s outside post offices and on street corners in large Eastern cities. American collection boxes were initially designed to be hung or supported, and were mounted on support pillars, lamp-posts, telegraph poles, or even the sides of buildings. Unlike Canadian mailboxes, which were painted red, American mail collection boxes were originally painted in red or green. Beginning in 1909, all mail collection boxes were painted a dark green to avoid confusion with emergency and fire equipment. In 1971 the
United States Postal Service changed mail collection boxes to the current USPS Dark Blue with contrasting lettering. The coming of the automobile also influenced American mailbox design, and in the late 1930s, an extension chute or "snorkel" to drive-up curbside collection boxes was adopted. File:Post office drivethrough lane.jpg|
USPS "Snorkel" collection boxes for drive-through access in
Los Altos, California File:It is in the mail (8080987511).jpg|A USPS collection box without a "snorkel" File:New-style USPS box, detail.jpg|Slit for letters, replacing the flap on a new USPS collection box File:Old USPS Collection Box.jpg|A USPS storage box in
Venice, Los Angeles, California, in 2018 with the olive green USPS colouring scheme used between
World War I and 1955 File:CanadaPost Mailbox in Markham, Ontario.jpg|Post box in
Markham, Ontario, Canada, decorated with
postal codes Africa In 1500, a Portuguese sea captain named
Pêro de Ataíde lost much of his fleet in a storm off the
Southern Cape. He wrote a message reporting the damage and a warning relating the state of affairs in India, for future Portuguese captains to avoid Calicut, which was now hostile. Ataíde tucked the message in a boot dangling from a
milkwood tree near a spring where sailors often drew water, Aguada de São Brás (
Mossel Bay). Miraculously, the message was retrieved by its intended recipient,
João da Nova, admiral of the outgoing
3rd armada, the very next year. The tree became a de facto post office box, where sailors would exchange letters protected in boots, iron pots, or beneath rocks. Seamen would leave their messages behind, trusting that their countrymen would pick them up and deliver them to their correct destination, albeit very slowly. The
Post Office Tree, now believed to be approximately 600 years old, still continues to send and receive mail. A large post office box shaped like a giant boot has been constructed beneath the tree, where people can send letters anywhere in the world and receive a special stamp. Presumably, delivery now takes less than a year. ==Types of post boxes==