Mongol Post adopts what3words addressing system

Mongol Post, Mongolia’s national postal delivery service, has adopted the what3words platform as its national addressing system. Mongolia has a famously nomadic population, and its three million citizens are spread across an area nearly the size of the European Union with no consistent addressing system.

what3words has developed an easy-to-use, accurate address for every 3m x 3m square in the world, and Mongol Post is now making this address system integral to its service.

In a statement posted on the what3words website yesterday (24 May), Giles Rhys Jones, what3words CMO, said that Mongolia faces some “unique challenges” when it comes to postal services.

“In many parts of the country,” said Rhys Jones, “citizens have to collect mail from Post Office boxes dozens of kilometres away from their homes.

“Other customers have no access to postal services or deliveries at all. When deliveries are made, descriptive directions (for example, “opposite the gas station, near the Internet Cafe”) and landmarks are often the only way to specify a location; customers regularly provide a mobile phone number on the envelope so the driver can call for directions. “Failed deliveries are commonplace, inconveniencing citizens, holding back the operations of both businesses and government, and raising the cost of deliveries.”

Now, however, continued Rhys Jones, Mongol Post customers will be able to discover any three word address using the free app, and simply write it on an envelope or enter it on the checkout page of a shopping website.

“Every citizen now has an address,” said Rhys Jones, “whether they live in rural areas, the Ger districts (informal settlements in the capital) or the centre of Ulaanbaatar. what3words will be integrated across Mongol Post’s internal systems, while postal workers will use the 3 word address to navigate directly to the 3mx3m square where they will find the customer’s front door.”