California area and zip codes

PO Boxes and military codes are excluded. You can copy and paste this list directly into your spreadsheet. Top 10 zip codes shown. Out of the 1, zip codes in California, is the largest by population.

Here is a list of useful links which we think can be helpful whether you work on data visualization or make research about California state and California zip codes. Are you looking for California Zip Code map? Are you looking for California Counties map? Share Share Tweet Pin It. Wyoming Zip Codes list and population density map in Excel. Also showing how to paint Wyoming Zip Code map with your data. Free PDF included.

Wisconsin Zip Codes list and population density map in Excel. They are intended to group mail to allow the USPS to deliver mail more efficiently. Some ZIP codes will span multiple states in order to make mail routing and delivery more efficient. In most cases, addresses in close proximity to each other are grouped in the same ZIP code which gives the appearance that ZIP codes are defined by a clear geographic boundary.

However, some ZIP codes have nothing to do with geogaphic areas. When ZIP codes appear to be geographically grouped, a clear shape cannot always be drawn around the ZIP code because ZIP codes are only assigned to a point of delivery and not the spaces between delivery points. In areas without a regular postal route or no mail delivery, ZIP codes may not be defined or have unclear boundaries.

The main issue is discussed above: there simply isn't always a clear geographic boundary for a ZIP code. The Census Bureau and many other commercial services will try to interpolate the data to create polygons shapes using straight lines to represent the approximate area covered by a ZIP code, but none of these maps are official or entirely accurate.

They provide a very close approximation of the area covered by a ZIP code. You can easily notice some of the boundary issues when viewing our maps. Very rural areas aren't labeled as belonging to a ZIP code such as much of Nevada and Utah where there are few, if any, addresses to deliver mail.

If the address is on the same street as a ZIP code boundary on the map, be sure to search for the full street address to determine the ZIP code instead of relying on the map. Their purpose is to convey statistical data about regions that are familiar to most citizens. As discussed above, it is difficult to precisely define a geographic area covered by a ZIP code.

ZCTAs were developed to account for some of the difficulties in assigning an area to a ZIP code and to precisely define a geographic area. In general, they are updated once every 10 years for the Census. The Census assigns an area to a ZCTA according to census blocks the smallest geographic unit used by the census. Imagine a city block that makes up a typical census block as pictured to the right. It is bounded on all 4 sides by portions of city streets that each have their own name and addresses.

The issue is that census blocks almost always split down the middle of the street. ZIP codes rarely do because that would require two postal workers delivering mail to that street - one for each side of the street. In the example, one mail carrier may deliver to 3 sides of the block via one ZIP code while another mail carrier delivers mail on the other street in a different ZIP code.

When this happens, the Census Bureau will assign the entire block to a single ZCTA in this case, because the census block is the area that is precisely measured. If you are getting very precise usually a matter of meters, not miles , census block boundaries near the edge of a ZIP code almost always split ZIP codes.

The statistics provided by the Census Bureau can give insight into the demographics within the ZIP code. For instance, see our ZIP code rankings. Remember that ZIP codes were made to make mail delivery easier.