The first standardised postal service was set up between Innsbruck and Mechelen, Belgium in 1490. By 1563 an extensive system of mail routes existed connecting Vienna with cities in Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. In 1722 In Emperor Charles VI made the postal service a government monopoly and by the mid-18th century passenger carrying mail coach service began.
During the 1800s letter boxes, money orders, cash-on-delivery services were introduced and a pneumatic mail system was setup in Vienna in 1875.
The first regular international airmail route between Vienna, Kraków and Lviv was established on March 31, 1918, and terminated on October 15. Three definitive stamps were overprinted "FLUGPOST" for this flight and showed that a regular airmail delivery was feasible even during wartime. Many philatelists consider this regular post delivery with aeroplanes to be the actual start of airmail history.
Postal codes were introduced nationwide in 1966.
Philately
Though not in general use until 80 years later, the first postmarks were introduced in 1787 by Georg Khumer, a postmaster in Friesach identifying time and place of use, and Austria's first postage stamps were issued in 1850.
