saxon postal mileposts were set up during the reign of august the strong and his successor along all important postal and trading routes and in almost all towns in the electorate of saxony to indicate the official distances. this was intended to be the basis for the creation of a unified calculation of postal charges. because the territory of the electorate of saxony was larger than that of the present-day german state of saxony, these mileposts are nowadays also found in the states of thuringia, brandenburg and saxony-anhalt, as well as in poland.