Correos

Sociedad Estatal Correos y Telégrafos, S.A.

Company type	Sociedad Anónima (Sociedad Estatal)
Industry	Postal services, courier
Predecessor	Entidad Pública Empresarial Correos y Telégrafos
Founded	Madrid, Spain (June 9, 2001 (2001-06-09))
Headquarters	Madrid , Spain
Services	Letter post, parcel service, EMS, delivery, freight forwarding, third-party logistics
Website	www.correos.es

Sociedad Estatal de Correos y Telégrafos, S.A., popularly known as Correos, is the national postal service of Spain, as recognized by the Universal Postal Union. The company is 100% state owned, through the State Industrial Holding Company (SEPI). With 63,000 employees and 5.4 billion pieces of mail sent each year, Correos is one of the largest postal services in the world. Based in Madrid, it has over 10,000 postal centres all over Spain.

History

Correos has covered the whole of Spanish territory every day in public service for more than 300 years.

During the Middle Ages, the post belonged to the Crown. There was a long period of messengers, royal couriers, runners—like the 80 that the King of Aragón, Pedro el Ceremonioso, had—and of important positions related to correspondence, like the Main Post Office in the court of the Spanish Catholic Monarchs.

Correos headquarters (Madrid)

In the modern era, under the rule of the Habsburgs, the administration of the service was contracted to individuals and Correos started to have a more homogenous structure with a certain similarity to the current service. From 1506, Philip I bestowed the postal monopoly on Francisco Tassis who gave us the system and organisation that he himself had used in Germany. Juan Francisco Goyeneche was the last postal service contractor From the 18th century, with the accession of the Bourbons to the throne, Philip V made Correos into a state service available to all citizens. The service developed through detailed regulations (like those of 1720 and the Postal Orders of 1743) and through the men who managed Correos in the following years; men such as Rodríguez de Campomanes who from 1755 standardised charges, introduced home deliveries and created the post offices and post boxes in them (the precedents of local post) and improved the road network. These were just some of the reforms which led to the modernisation of the postal service in Spain.

In 1850, the first postage stamp appeared in Spain, bearing the image of Queen Isabella II. This had two important consequences. On one hand the cost of deliveries was reduced as the service was paid for by the sender rather than the person receiving the correspondence and on the other, the number of deliveries increased considerably. That year 18,500,000 deliveries were made. In 1889 the Cuerpo de Correos (the Postal Workforce) was created in Spain. From then on the presence of postmen increased in more and more towns and Correos started to become an indispensable element for the unity and structure of Spain.

Correos has continued to evolve until the present day and to adapt to new requirements in society; and these changes have acquired a frantic pace in the last few years. In 1992 it ceased to be a Government Department and became a commercial organisation, and five years after that it became a state company. In June 2001 a new form of management was introduced when the company became a public limited company.

Typical format of Correos pillar boxes, found across Spain

External links

• Correos Website (in Spanish)