25 Little-Known Facts About ZIP Codes

You see it every single day on the mail and packages you receive, and you even write it every time you send a letter or a bill, but you probably have never thought twice about ZIP codes. Today, we’re going to delve into the world of U.S. Postal ZIP codes with these 25 facts:

1. The "ZIP" in Zip Code is an acronym which stands for "Zone Improvement Plan."

2. How many zip codes are there? If someone offered you $1,000,000 if you got even within 50%, could you guess accurately? Me neither, as I had no idea before researching for this blog.

3. In fact, there are now about 42,000 ZIP codes in the United States! That may seem like a huge number, but consider that Canada has 861,094 postal codes (their version of zip codes!).

4. I say “about” that many because the number of ZIP codes we have changes each year – often dramatically. In fact, there are about 5,000 changes to ZIP codes every year, including getting rid of old ones and creating new ones.

5. Each ZIP code now has an average population of about 7,631 men, women, and children.

6. Before 1963, zip codes didn’t exist in their present form, and mailing addresses just consisted of your home number, street, city, and state.

7. In 1943 during World War II, most able bodied young mailmen and postal employees had to go serve overseas, so a two-digit coding system for each major city was introduced to help the new, inexperienced replacement workers.

8. But our modern ZIP code system is attributed to a postal inspector named Robert Moon, who developed the concept in 1963 to ease the flow of mail and improve organization in his Philadelphia mail center.

9. Moon's ZIP code system first had only three digits, which identified the region and even city where the mail was going making it far faster for postal workers to sort, and it was officially adopted by the USPS.

10. The ZIP code acronym and system were soon trademarked by the United States Postal Service. Interestingly, that trademark has now expired and they chose not to renew it, meaning that anyone can use "ZIP" without conflict.

So what do the numbers in your Zip Code represent?

11. The first digit of any ZIP code represents a state or group of states. For instance, “1” is for Deleware, New York, and Pennsylvania. As you go from the eastern states west, the codes for those states go up.

12. The first three numbers of any Zip Code earmark the code for that particular post office sectional center facility (called an SCF). 

13. The last two digits reference the location, usually zooming in on the particular area. But they can also be a holdover from the system of two-digit zip codes that each big city had before 1943.  For example, the 2-digit code for Minneapolis used to be 16, so the city’s modern zip code is 554-16.

14. You’ve probably also noticed a four-digit code that follows the regular 5-digit ZIP code. Added in 1983, the additional four-digit ZIP code is primarily used by businesses who ship high volumes. These businesses get a discount on the cost of mailing if they include the last four digits because it helps facilitate a faster and more efficient mail flow.

15. Most people also have no idea that ZIP codes do more than just help us sort the mail. In fact, the codes are also used by bankers and lenders in issuing credit card authorizations, as well as factoring heavily into assigning insurance ratings.

16. But all ZIP codes are not created equally; there are actually four classifications of ZIPs. These include ‘Unique’ codes (for high volume addresses), ‘PO Boxes’, ‘Military’ & ‘Standard’.

17. But once introduced, everyone didn’t take an instant shine to ZIP codes, and it took a while for them to become commonly used. In fact, The U.S. Post Office even promoted the use of their new codes in the 1960s and 70s by unveiling their own mascot, Mr. ZIP, also known as Zippy.

18. Even the National Forest Service’s Smokey Bear chipped into to promote the ZIP code system. In 1964, the character responsible for making "Only you can prevent forest fires" a household mantra got his own ZIP code, 20252.

19. In a strange partnership, Hollywood helped to promote the use of ZIP codes when TV icon Ethel Merman recorded a song to the melody of "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah” for the post office.

20. The White House has not only one, but two of its own ZIP codes; one for the POTUS and one for his family to receive personal mail (20500).

21. Here are some other areas with their own special postal codes:

The World Trade Center also had its own ZIP code before September 11,

The Empire State Building,

Saks Fifth Avenue in New York,

Dodgertown in California

Wal-Mart headquarters

General Electric in Schenectady, N.Y. (12345)

For two weeks every summer during the Burning Man Festival, the city of Black Rock City, NV, receives its own ZIP code (89412)

22. The most famous ZIP is 90210 in Beverly Hills, known worldwide thanks to the 90’s TV show.

23. But that’s not the wealthiest ZIP code in the U.S. That designation belongs to both 07620 - Alpine, N.J. - and 33109 - Fisher Island, Fla.

24. Other notable ZIP codes include:

32976 A mobile home park in Barefoot Bay, Florida is large enough to have its own code.

91210 As is the shopping mall in Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California.

17927 This ZIP code was assigned to a mine in Centralia, Pennsylvania. But since an underground fire has burned inside the mine for over 40 years, the USPS revoked their ZIP code in 1992.

77230 Was assigned to Hurricane Katrina victims taking shelter in the Houston Astrodome in 2005 and is still in service today as a P.O. box code.

25. Here are a few other fun ZIP codes:

10001 New York, NY (aka Empire State, NY)

90909 Not real, but featured on TV’s Veronica Mars

31415(Pi) Savannah, GA. Brilliant!

55555 Young America, MN

22222 Arlington, VA including Arlington Cemetery for U.S. veterans

30 Real estate facts that will blow your mind!

If you’re a homeowner or have bought and sold several times, you may think that you know real estate well. Some people may even find it a little boring, based solely on prices going up or down. But in fact, the phenomenon of housing, building, and land ownership are as old as human civilization itself – and just as interesting. To prove that point, here are 30 real estate facts that will blow your mind!

1. If you appraised the White House as if it was any other property and home in Washington DC, it would be valued at around $110 million!

2. In the midst of the Great Recession, 2009 saw more foreclosures than marriages in the U.S.

3. The profession with the highest percentage of homeowners (and least number of renters) is farmers and ranchers, with a 90.4% homeownership rate.

4. By the way, real estate agents are second with 84.9% homeownership, followed by postal workers (84%), firefighters (83.6%), and police officers (80.1%).

5. Do you think real estate disclosures are a little excessive in California? In New York State, owners legally need to disclose if the home they’re selling is thought to be haunted by ghosts or paranormal activity.

6. The average U.S. home built last year is early 2,600 square feet, and we even consider older 1,500 square foot homes small. But in most developing countries, a common home may only be 75 square feet – basically, one room!

7. We might hem and haw when interest rates climb a little bit these days, but we’re still spoiled compared to where rates have been in the past. In fact, the historical average for a 30-year fixed mortgage interest rate is about 8.53%!

8. The highest interest rate (in the modern era) was in 1981 when they were a whopping 16.04% for a 30-year fixed loan! But the lowest average interest rate was in 2013 when they fell to 3.66%.

9. Incredibly, since 1972, interest rates have been over 9% a lot more (15 times) than they have been under 6% (8 times).

10. Alaska holds two important distinctions for U.S. states: it’s both the northernmost state and the easternmost state.

11. Speaking of Alaska, many people don’t realize that Japanese forces invaded a few remote Alaskan islands during WWII, making it the only occupied U.S. land during that war.

12. When real estate and hotel mogul Leona Helmsley passed away in 2007, she left $12 million to her dog, Trouble, in her will.

13. There are five times as many vacant houses in the U.S. as there are homeless people.

14. The competition for the tallest building in the world used to be all consuming and create intense competition, so when the Chrysler Building went up in New York in the 1920s, the architects wanted to keep the final height a secret from other city's builders. So they actually built a 125-foot spire and stored it inside the building, and then only pushed it up out to top the structure when it was done, earning the designation of the tallest building.

15. These days, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the tallest building in the world, reaching an unbelievable height of 2,717 feet tall (more than half a mile.) It’s so high that you can watch the sunset from the bottom floors and then take the elevator to the top and watch it again.

16. In order to preserve the natural scenic beauty, the states of Vermont, Hawaii, Alaska, and Maine have laws that ban all outdoor roadside billboards.

17. Back in the 1930s, gangster Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd robbed a lot of banks. But he was seen as a hero by common people since he would collect mortgage documents and destroy them every time he robbed a bank, freeing hundreds of people from their home loan debts.

18. In China, they’ve made prefabricated construction so efficient that they can erect a 30-story skyscraper in only 15 days!

19. Eerily, on the owners of the World Trade Center had a meeting scheduled for 09/11/2001 to talk about their strategy in case of a terrorist attack. The meeting, which was to be held on the 88th floor, was rescheduled the night before because someone couldn’t attend.

20. In Scotland, homeowners who have paid off their mortgage paint their front door bright red as is the custom, letting others know they’re mortgage debt free.

21. In the U.S., we’d have a lot of red doors, as almost 30% of American homeowners – or 21 million homes - own their home free and clear.

22. Flood insurance is a necessity around Lake Superior. In fact, the Great Lake holds so much water that if it every emptied, it could theoretically spill one foot of water across the entire United States!

23. "We're going to Vegas!" is a common rallying cry for partiers, gamblers, and those who need a vacation. But most people don't realize that the majority of the Las Vegas Strip sits in the neighboring city of Paradise, saving casinos, hotels, and other establishments millions of dollars in taxes.

24. The game of Monopoly wasn’t intended to be a primer in the benefits of real estate investment, but originally to warn players about the pitfalls of Capitalism.

25. Warren Buffet may be one of the richest men in the world, with a vast fortune due in part to real estate investments, but the Oracle of Omaha still lives in the same house he bought with his wife for $31,500 in 1958.

26. The planet Pluto has a smaller surface area than the country of Russia.

27. You've probably heard of people who specialize in bartering, and maybe even seen TV shows where people try to "trade up" to bigger and better possessions. Well, one man started with a single red paper clip and traded his way up until he owner an entire house!

28. McDonald's, the most famous restaurant chain in the world, doesn't make its fortunes from selling burgers, but selling real estate to franchisees for their fast food locations. In fact, McDonald's is the largest commercial landowner in the world.

29. When Apple computers wanted to build a new facility in North Carolina, they bought a single acre of land in the path of the project’s build for $1.7 million from an elderly couple. Their profit? They’d bought it for $6,000 34 years earlier.

30. The wealthiest man in India has built a billion dollar personal residence, complete with 27 floors and six levels just for parking, accommodating his 168 cars.