DHL is a German, multinational logistics company headquartered in Bonn, Germany.[5] It provides courier, package delivery and express mail service, delivering over 1.7 billion parcels per year.[6] A subsidiary and the namesake of DHL Group, its express mail service DHL Express is one of the market leaders for parcel services in Europe. DHL Express is Germany's main international courier and parcel service.[7] DHL also operates a separate parcel service targeting the German consumer market in conjunction with Deutsche Post.

The company DHL itself was founded in San Francisco, United States in 1969 and expanded its service throughout the world by the late 1970s. DHL is an initialism of Dalsey, Hillblom and Lynn, the surnames of the original company's founders.[8]

The company was primarily interested in offshore and intercontinental deliveries, but the success of FedEx prompted DHL's own domestic (intra-US) expansion starting in 1983. In 1998, Deutsche Post began to acquire shares in DHL. It reached controlling interest in 2001, and acquired all outstanding shares by December 2002.[9] The company then absorbed DHL into its Express division, while expanding the use of the DHL brand to other Deutsche Post divisions, business units, and subsidiaries. Today, DHL Express shares its DHL brand with business units such as DHL Global Forwarding and DHL Supply Chain.[10] It gained a foothold in the United States when it acquired Airborne Express in 2003.