Japanese postal barcode

The Japanese postal barcode is used in mail sorting for Japan. It encodes an 7-digit postal/zip code plus an optional alphanumeric address code. The symbology allows the coding of the digits 0-9, letters A-Z, and hyphen.

This sort of bar code system is regarded as "four-state" because there are four types of bars, classified by presence of ascenders and/or descenders. This sort of system is transcribable using DAFT notation. These sorts of bar codes are used by a number of countries in their postal systems, though the specific symbologies by which they encode characters can vary.

Utilities

 * Barcode generator: Japanese postal bar code

Links

 * Japan Post bar code info
 * Discussion of the encoding of these bar codes
 * Japanese postal/zip code directory