Kano State postal codes begin with 70 or 71. Kano head office is 700001, and the state’s codes run up to 713105.
Kano anchors postal region 7, which it shares with Jigawa, Bauchi and Gombe, and it uses more dispatch blocks than any state outside Lagos. That is a function of size. Kano has 44 local government areas, more than any other state in Nigeria, and a metropolitan core dense enough to need several sorting districts of its own.
Kano State Postal Code at a Glance
| State capital | Kano |
|---|---|
| Head office code | 700001 |
| Code range | 700001 to 713105 |
| Dispatch prefixes | 700, 701, 702, 703, 704, 710, 711, 712, 713 |
| Local Government Areas | 44 |
| Postal region | Region 7 |
| Digits | Six, numeric only |
Reading a Kano State Code
Take 700001, the Kano head office code. The first digit, 7, puts the address in postal region 7. The first three digits, 700, name the dispatch district that sorts outgoing mail. The last three, 001, are the delivery location, and 001 always means the head office itself.
The same three part structure explains why codes inside one town look almost identical while codes from opposite ends of the state look unrelated. Two houses on the same street usually share all six digits, because they share a delivery round. Two houses in different towns rarely share more than the first three.
Every genuine Kano State code is built the same way, which gives you a quick test. If someone hands you a code for an address in Kano State and it does not begin with 70, it is not a Kano State code.
Dispatch Districts in Kano State
Nine dispatch blocks serve Kano, which is unusual. The 700 through 704 blocks concentrate on the metropolis and its immediate ring, the part of the state where population density makes narrow delivery rounds worthwhile. The 710 through 713 blocks cover the wider state, where a single district may take in several towns. The split roughly tracks the difference between the city, which is one of the largest urban areas in West Africa, and the farming belt around it.
| Dispatch prefix | Codes it issues |
|---|---|
| 700 | 700001 to 700999 |
| 701 | 701001 to 701999 |
| 702 | 702001 to 702999 |
| 703 | 703001 to 703999 |
| 704 | 704001 to 704999 |
| 710 | 710001 to 710999 |
| 711 | 711001 to 711999 |
| 712 | 712001 to 712999 |
| 713 | 713001 to 713999 |
The 44 Local Government Areas in Kano State
Kano has 44 local government areas, the highest count in the country. Eight of them make up the metropolis, and the other 36 cover the rural state. Both sets are listed below, and neither is the unit NIPOST actually codes.
| Ajingi | Albasu | Bebeji |
| Bagwai | Bichi | Bunkure |
| Dala | Dambatta | Dawakin Kudu |
| Dawakin Tofa | Doguwa | Fagge |
| Gabasawa | Garko | Garun Mallam |
| Gaya | Gezawa | Gwale |
| Gwarzo | Kabo | Kano Municipal |
| Karaye | Kibiya | Kiru |
| Kumbotso | Kunchi | Kura |
| Madobi | Makoda | Minjibir |
| Nasarawa | Rano | Rimin Gado |
| Rogo | Shanono | Sumaila |
| Takai | Tarauni | Tofa |
| Tsanyawa | Tudun Wada | Ungogo |
| Warawa | Wudil |
What you will not find above is a code beside each name, and that is deliberate. NIPOST issues codes to delivery districts, not to local governments. Tables that pair the two are estimates, which is why published lists for Kano State contradict each other and sometimes contradict themselves.
The Metropolis and the Other Thirty Six
Eight local governments form the Kano metropolis: Dala, Fagge, Gwale, Kano Municipal, Nassarawa, Tarauni, Ungogo and Kumbotso. Together they hold the great majority of the state’s post, its commercial addresses and every district where a six digit code identifies something as small as a few streets.
The remaining 36 are rural or semi rural, and their delivery districts are correspondingly broad. Wudil, Gaya, Rano, Bichi and Dambatta function as local centres with their own post offices, and the villages around each are served through them. A code there tells the sorting office which town to send to, and the town does the rest.
Addressing Inside the Old City
Kano Municipal contains the walled city, and addressing there works differently from anywhere else in Nigeria. The old city is organised into quarters, and the gates, the kofar, are the reference points people use. An address given as a ward and a gate is more precise, to a Kano postman, than a street number, because that is the geography the delivery rounds were built on.
When you write a formal address inside the old city, give the ward, then the nearest gate or landmark, then the city and code. Leaving the ward out and quoting only a street number is the fastest way to slow a delivery down.
Market Mail and the Commercial North
Kano is the commercial capital of northern Nigeria and its markets, Kurmi in the old city and Sabon Gari to the north east, generate business correspondence at a scale that keeps the central delivery districts sharp. Sabon Gari in particular has the most reliably coded streets outside the government layouts, because it has been a trading quarter with fixed addresses for over a century.
Post Office Boxes and Private Mail Bags in Kano State
The box number alone identifies nothing. It is the pairing of box and branch that tells the sorting office where the item ends up. A private mail bag works the same way but is issued to an organisation rather than an individual, which is why ministries, universities and large companies publish one instead of a street address.
The layout looks like this:
P.O. Box 1234 Kano Main Post Office 700001 Kano Nigeria
Two practical notes. A box address is often more reliable than a street address in Kano State, because it removes the guesswork about which delivery district covers you, and it survives you moving house. But couriers who deliver to the door, which is most of them, cannot deliver to a box at all, so keep a street address for anything that arrives by bike.
Codes Published for Kano State That Cannot Be Right
We tested the Kano State tables that circulate online for internal contradictions, meaning two local governments published with ranges that share the same numbers. Kano State shows none, which puts it among the cleaner states in the country.
That is worth something, but be careful what you read into it. Consistency is not accuracy. It means nobody has published two ranges that openly contradict each other for Kano State, not that NIPOST ever issued a code to a local government. The safe reading stands: treat block level information as solid and treat any single code attached to a local government as an estimate until your delivery office confirms it.
It is worth knowing how wrong codes get into circulation in the first place, because the same three routes explain almost every bad table online. The first is interpolation, where somebody knows two real codes and fills the gap between them with a tidy range. The second is inheritance, where one site guesses and forty others copy it, which is why a wrong code can look authoritative through sheer repetition. The third is drift, where a code was right when it was published and the delivery district was later split or merged.
You can check any Kano State code you are given in two steps. Confirm it starts with one of the dispatch prefixes listed above, which rules out codes belonging to another state entirely. Then confirm the last three digits with the delivery office, which is the only part no table can settle for you.
What Happens to a Letter Posted in Kano State
Knowing the chain explains why the first three digits matter more than the last three. A letter posted anywhere in Kano State is collected to the nearest branch, then moved to the dispatch office named by the first three digits of the destination code. Outgoing post leaves the state through the region 7 network, and incoming post arrives the same way in reverse, landing at the dispatch office before it is broken down to the delivery round in the last three digits.
The code earns its keep on registered and tracked items. Ordinary post in Kano State is forgiving, because a postman who recognises the street will deliver it regardless of the digits. A registered item, an EMS parcel or anything arriving from abroad is handled against the code at each transfer, so a wrong dispatch prefix on those can add days or send the item back.
Get the first three digits wrong and your letter travels to the wrong part of the country before anyone notices. Get the last three wrong and it usually still arrives, a day late, because the delivery office recognises the street. This is why a head office code such as 700001 is a safe fallback and a random six digits is not.
How to Write a Kano State Address
Kano city addresses lean on the quarter or ward name, which often predates the street name and is what people actually use.
The order NIPOST expects runs from the specific to the general, with the code on the same line as the town:
Alhaji M. Sanusi 5 Zoo Road Nassarawa GRA 700001 Kano Nigeria
Two habits worth breaking. Do not put the code on its own line at the bottom the way American addresses do, because Nigerian sorting reads it beside the town name. And do not drop the state, even for a well known city, because several towns share names across states and the state is what disambiguates them.
Neighbouring Codes in Region 7
Kano State shares its postal region with the states below. If a code you have been given starts with one of their prefixes, the address is not in Kano State.
| State | Prefix |
|---|---|
| Jigawa | 720 |
| Bauchi | 740 |
| Gombe | 760 |
Finding the Code for Your Street
- Walk into the post office nearest your address and ask which district you are in. That answer beats any table on the internet, including this one.
- Search the NIPOST postcode finder by address rather than by local government.
- Where the delivery is informal anyway, use 700001, the Kano head office code, which routes correctly across the state.
What to Enter on a Form
Type 700001 if you are in or near Kano and do not know your district code. Six digits, no spaces. Avoid 23401 and 00000, which are not NIPOST codes and mean nothing to a sorting office even though most websites accept them.
The New Code Coming in October
On 1 October 2026 NIPOST replaces this format with an 11 character code covering state, local government, district, area and building. For Kano the change is significant in the rural half of the state, where one district code currently covers ground that a building level code will finally break down properly.
Quick Facts
- Kano State head office code: 700001
- Range: 700001 to 713105
- Dispatch prefixes: 700, 701, 702, 703, 704, 710, 711, 712, 713
- Local Government Areas: 44
- Capital: Kano
- New alphanumeric postcode: 1 October 2026
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the zip code for Kano?
Kano head office is 700001. Every code in the state begins 70 or 71, with the full range running from 700001 to 713105.
How many local governments does Kano have?
Forty four, more than any other state in Nigeria. Eight of them make up the metropolis and the other 36 cover the rural state.
What is the postal code for Sabon Gari, Kano?
Sabon Gari sits inside the metropolitan blocks beginning 70. The exact district code depends on which delivery round covers the street, so confirm at the branch.
Why does Kano use so many dispatch blocks?
Because of its size. Nine blocks serve the state, splitting a very dense metropolis from a large farming belt where districts have to cover much more ground.
Is the Kano area code the same as the postal code?
No. The telephone area code for Kano is 02064, which changed from 064 in 2023. The postal code for the head office is 700001.
What code should I use for a village near Kano?
Use the code of the town whose post office serves the village. If you do not know it, 700001 will reach the state and the address does the rest.
Why do Kano codes start with 7?
The first digit is the postal region. Kano is region 7 along with Jigawa, Bauchi and Gombe, and Kano holds the region’s anchor code.
Are published Kano LGA codes reliable?
The Kano tables show no internal contradictions, which is rarer than it sounds. That still does not make an LGA code a real NIPOST assignment, since codes belong to delivery districts.
Summary
Kano codes begin with 70 or 71, run from 700001 to 713105, and come from nine dispatch blocks. Kano head office, 700001, anchors postal region 7. The state has 44 local governments, eight of them metropolitan, and the gap between city and countryside is visible in how precisely a code identifies a place.
Conclusion
Use 700001 when a form asks. Inside the old city, give the ward and the gate before the street, because that is the geography the delivery rounds follow. Outside the metropolis, name the town whose post office serves you and let the code point there.