London E
Postcode area
E
Coordinates: 51°32′42″N 0°00′50″W / 51.545°N 0.014°W / 51.545; -0.014
Country	United Kingdom
Postcode area	E
Postcode area name	London E
Post towns	1
Postcode districts	22
Postcode sectors	108
Postcodes (live)	16,260
Postcodes (total)	28,280
Statistics as at May 2020[1]

The E (Eastern) postcode area, also known as the London E postcode area,^[2] is the part of the London post town covering much of east London, England. It borders the N postcode area to the west, both north of the tidal Thames. Since closure of the East London mail centre, its mail is sorted at Romford Mail Centre together with IG and RM postcode areas.

Postal administration

The current E postcode area was originally formed in 1866 as a merger of the E and NE areas, which had been created in 1858. In 1917, the postal districts were numbered alphabetically by their most important parish, chapelry, topographical or built environment feature.^[3] As of 2004, the district names do not form part of the postal address.^[2] High demand caused sector 9 of the E1 postcode district to be split and recoded in 1999 to create an E1W postcode district around Wapping,^[4] but the rest of the district did not gain an additional character. When districts are used for purposes other than the sorting of mail, such as use as a geographic reference and on street signs, E1 and E1W continue to be commonly classed as one 'district'. The E postcode area contains two non-geographic postcode districts for high-volume business users, E77 and E98.^[5]

The Eastern District Office is on Whitechapel Road and was the eastern terminus for the former London Post Office Railway, which has been mothballed since 2003. The railway ran 10.5 kilometres (6.5 mi) to the Paddington Head District Sorting Office.

The E20 postcode has been used fictionally in television soap-opera EastEnders since 1985. It has been a real postcode since 2011 carved from and only bordered by the E15 postcode, its buildings marketed as and often self-identifying as Olympic Park and Queen Elizabeth Park. It includes landmark sports venues built for the 2012 Summer Olympics.^[6]

List of postcode districts

The approximate coverage of the postcode districts,^[7] with the historic postal district names^[8][9] in italics, is as follows:

The E17 postcode district is one of four to have a population above 100,000.^[10]

Boundaries

The E1 postcode district is bounded by the River Thames to the south. Postcode districts E6, E14 and E16 also have river frontages in the south. The River Roding and the North Circular Road form part of the boundary in the east. The postcode area is roughly the combined area of the London Boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Newham and Waltham Forest. Also, the eastern part of the London Borough of Hackney, the western sections of the London Boroughs of Redbridge (E11, E12, E18) and Barking and Dagenham (E6) and a small part of the Epping Forest District (E4), are within the postcode area.

In popular culture

• The 1990s pop band East 17, formed in Walthamstow, whose postcode district is E17.
• BBC soap EastEnders uses E20 (which did not actually exist until 2011) as the postcode district for the borough of Walford.
• The track "Bow E3" by grime musician Wiley refers to the E3 postcode, which is centred on the area of Bow where Wiley grew up.

Map

The postcode area excludes parts of East London like the following:

• Central areas covered by central London EC postcodes.
• Hoxton in Shoreditch is part of the N postcode area but is usually seen as being part of the East End.
• The eastern suburbs built after the introduction of the E postcode area are now mainly in the IG and RM postal areas.