Help needed for France

[dmoncu]

Hi;

I just bought 34000.com and its having some traffic from France. I found out that 34000 is one of the postal codes for Montpellier and also it was a french website years years ago.

All I want to know is; if postal codes are important in France? I mean does anybody living in Montpelllier know that 34000 is their postal code? Maybe the question seems a little odd, but in my country and city postal code are not such a big deal, and most people doesnt care about them unless they're post officers.

Thanks in advance.

 

[dmoncu]

still looking for help

 

[Kate]

Zipcodes are important in most European countries. If you want to receive correspondence with no additional delay you must include your zipcode along with your city & street address.
In everyday life I believe the French put more emphasis on department number than zipcodes, for instance Montpellier is located in the departement of Hérault (34).
It is common for the French to add their department # in Internet usernames for example

 

[dmoncu]

thank you sdsinc

 

[Tribulatio]

sdsinc is entirely right about the primary significance of department codes.

Definitely anybody living in France will know the zip code of the city - but then a large city will be divided into several codes. For instance I am staying tonight in Lyon, the department code is 69 - the place where I am staying tonight is in a part of twon with the zip code 69002, and I will give tomorrow morning a lecture in a city area with zip code 69006. In the case of Lyon, nobody will have 69000 as one's zip code, but all places in the Rhone Department will be 69xxx numbers.

The capital city of a department will always have the numbers closer to the start of the code: for instance, the 1st arrondissement of Paris is 75001, the 2nd 75002, etc.

A website on the department of Herault could definitely consider using 34000 as its name, people would understand the meaning.

 

[dmoncu]

Thank you Tribulatio. Actually 34000 is the postal code of Istanbul, too. And as you may know Istanbul is one of the worlds biggest cities. It has 15x population compared to Herault. But you have to come with a advertising campaign, because people of Istanbul wouldnt care much about the postal codes.
Anyway, see what time brings.

 

[r3born]

It depends on the department. For Paris (75), for example, you will never have a 75000 postal code.
34000, on the other hand, is the postal code of the heart of the city, just like 31000 is for the Toulouse city centre.
Hope it helps.