MAIL -- AND MAIL ART -- IN DENMARK. FROM THE BBC

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Denmark posts its last letters as hallowed national mail ends

The 400-year-old postal service stops delivering letters as digital communication takes over, leaving other European institutions watching nervously;

Four centuries ago, King Christian IV of Denmark issued a decree establishing one of Europe’s first modern postal services, following the examples of Poland and Portugal.

The routes, run by the guilds and the mayor of Copenhagen, stretched from Hamburg to Norway and were plied by the Amazon delivery drivers of their day, riders who were allowed a maximum of 45 minutes to cover each 10km stretch of the journey.

At the end of this month that long tradition will come to an end as Danes send their last round of Christmas cards through the post.

PostNord, the postal service that the country has shared with Sweden since 2009, will no longer deliver letters in Denmark from December 30. Its 1,500 remaining red boxes already started vanishing in June and a handful of them are to be displayed in museums.

As in so many countries, and especially in those that have made a decent fist of the transition from paper to digital screens, the use of letters has collapsed.

PostNord described the decision as “difficult” but necessary. “Danes have become more and more digital, and what was once sent by letter is now received digitally by the vast majority of people,” it said. “This means that there are very few letters left in Denmark.”

It does not spell the end of the letter in Denmark: a private logistics firm called DAO will step into the breach, albeit without the traditional postal infrastructure the country has built up since the early 17th century.

[holly johnson]

This is so sad.