Íslandspóstur
national postal service of Iceland
Íslandspóstur (Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈistlan(t)sˌpʰoustʏr], lit. 'Iceland Post') or simply Pósturinn ([ˈpʰoustʏrɪn], lit. 'The Post') is the national postal service of Iceland. It is wholly owned by the Icelandic Government. It dates back to the year 1776 when Christian VII, king of Denmark ordered a mail service to be established in the country. Its current form was established in 1998 following the split from the state telecom, Síminn.
Iceland Post is a member of the Universal Postal Union and the Small European Postal Administration Cooperation.
History
Icelandic postal history dates back to the year 1776 when Christian VII, king of Denmark (and of Iceland at the time) ordered a mail service to be established in the country. Two years later, regular postal sailings began between Iceland and Denmark, once a year. The first Icelandic postage stamps were published in 1873, and at the same time, the Icelandic postal system was being organised under a special board and the first post offices being established.
First post office
In 1872, the first post office was opened at Austurvöllur square, in a timber structure located where Hotel Borg currently is. The street later became Pósthússtræti (namesake, lit. 'post office street') and the post office was at number 11.
“Íslandspóstur” enters the record as national postal service of Iceland. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Íslandspóstur, national and postal can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q291809. VIAF identifies the subject as 1084152140019611100004. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1776, 1998, 1873 and 1872.
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This entry incorporates text from “Íslandspóstur” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.