Understanding and playing with ZIP Codes

Wednesday January 17th 2007
Filed Under Mapping, United States 

If you live or frequently send mail to the United States, then you probably understand that one of the most important components of the address is getting the ZIP code correct in order to have your mail successfully arrive at the intended address.  The city or community that you list is not as important as long as the ZIP code is correct.  Standing for “Zone Improvement Plant”, the Census Bureau defines ZIP code as:

A Zone Improvement Plan (ZIP) Code is the numerical code assigned by the U.S. Postal Service to designate a local area or entity for the delivery of mail. ZIP Codes may consist of 5, 7, 9, or 11 digits, and may refer to a street section, a collection of streets, an establishment, a structure, or a group of post office boxes.

Some have looked at the numbering scheme used for ZIP Codes.  Ben Fry created an basic application called zipdecode that shows the location of all the ZIP codes in the United States.  You can type in a ZIP code and the location and name of that location will show up on the map.  If you hold down the shift key and type the first number of the ZIP code, the region of the United States is highlighted.  For example the number “9” highlights California, Oregon and Washington.  Highlighting through the entire set of nine numbers sequentially (1, 2, 3 etc.) provides an interesting manual animation of how the ZIP codes are laid out across the country.

Ben Fry's Zipdecode Map

Robert Kosara took this idea a step further and created the US ZIPScribble Map.  His premise was to “connect the dots”.  He connected all the ZIP code point locations in ascending order and color coded the map to see if the ZIP codes adhered to state boundaries.  He found that some ZIP codes did adhere to state boundaries and others did not.

Robert Kosara's Zip Scribble Map



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    Comments

    One Response to “Understanding and playing with ZIP Codes”

    1. C.M. on July 6th, 2007 4:43 am

      Wow, great article Caitlin.

      I was surprised to see so many zip code projects going on, I hadn’t heard anything about these. I just found your story on digg right after submitting our high speed Internet & zip code database website project to digg : )

      It’s great to see other people writing about and using zip code information. Robert Kosara’s “connect the dots” sure is interesting, I imagine that took ages to put together.

      Alright,

      I’m going to go digg your article!

      Stop by our site sometime if you like, we’d love to have you!

      Colin M.
      DSLbyZIP.com

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