USPS releases official ZIP Code boundary polygons
USPS now offers official ZIP Code boundary polygons
The USPS now publishes official ZIP Code boundary polygons built from its own delivery address and location data, refreshed quarterly as delivery areas shift. Available in Internal, Enterprise, and Publication tiers, the dataset is aimed at mapping, marketing, insurance, real estate, logistics, and navigation, and can serve as ground truth for correcting existing ZIP Code data or as a proxy for delivery groupings in routing.
USPS® ZIP Code Boundaries is a national ZIP Code™ map utilizing USPS delivery address and location information to ensure accurate boundaries.
- SwellJoe
Dang, the prices are crazy. $10k for the lowest tier? I expect federal data to be free. Most federal data related to stuff like regulation (e.g. FCC spectrum use coverage maps), maps for federally-managed lands, etc. is free. And, it should be free. It's a core part of accountability and transparency. Historically there was a copying cost (having a human print physical copies on paper or CD/DVD/tape), which is understandable, but now that the incremental cost of each new copy approaches $0, that's what it should cost users of the data.
- showerst
I thought these were going to be free and got so excited.
FWIW if you're willing to deal with some 'fuzziness' and the occasional missing zip code that's commercial only, the ZCTA shapefiles are free and are close enough for many purposes: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g...
- xp84
This is interesting. For a long time it was pointed out that ZIP codes, unlike say, city or state boundaries, were not properly representable as polygons, since they don't divide up acreage into zones, but rather label postal delivery routes. Suppose I build a new neighborhood way out in the middle of nowhere. The "polygon" concept suggests that we could look and see what polygon I'm in, and that will determine what post office delivers my mail. But in reality, if there was no route to that area already, they could decide to make it part of any one of the surrounding routes.
I suppose though, as long as you let the polygons map has uncontained areas, where no routes currently exist, it's a doable task to draw polygons around the limits of every route network, as long as you don't mind that they may have lots of weird ragged edges.
- johnnyo
If this is govt-owned data, shouldn’t it be available with a FOIA request or similar?
Can someone with expertise in govt data rights explain? Do any other US govt agencies sell data to the private sector?
- foxfired
I feel like this should be public. I wonder what would be the repercussion of a gofundme to buy it once and make it publicly available. There aren't many downsides of updating every couple years.
- legitster
Some important context - Zip codes were not established as geographic markets. A "Zip Code" is collection of routes USPS uses - so it's whole goal was to get the right package on the right truck.
The "Zip+4" was the attempt to solve this- the 9 digit code narrows down the zipcode to a single block. But no one in the US cares enough to use these. It also doesn't solve the canonical problems the industry has with mapping data - people want to be able to put a pin in a random place on the map and pull up a clean zip code for data processing reasons.
- grzaks
Using ZIP codes to define geographic regions is always a bad idea. A ZIP code is an address attribute, not a geographic boundary. Some ZIP codes are assigned to PO boxes or parcel lockers, while entire cities may share a single ZIP code. You can even have streets stretching 30 km across a city, all under the same ZIP code.
- wills_forward
Great chance for me to hawk a silly vanity project: https://www.rickwills.com/lab/zip
Just a visualization of zip codes. Start typing a number and it highlights the zip codes on a map. Mildly interesting at best, maybe someone will like it.