Anyone know of any free sources of square footage by US zip? I did not have success looking on the census bureau. The AI(chatgpt, claude, copilot)s have suggested there could be disparate sources i’d need to cobble together, and that might work, i’m only looking at about 10 states.
Any suggestions?
Till all are one,
Epistemus
I’m guessing you mean an average, as opposed to the total square feet of a zip code? Probably some real estate website like zillow?
Hi @NormalDan
I actually do mean total square footage of the state. An actual measurement of how much space is in each zip.
Come to think of it, what do you mean by “average” square footage? Average square footage of what? I do not understand.
Total square footage of what? Of homes? Office space? The actual land in the state? (this should be widely and easily available stated as square miles or square kilometers so I assume this is not what you mean).
the entire zip code square footage.
I think you’re going to find that sort of information difficult to find.
“Area by ZIP Code” isn’t exactly a well-defined metric given that many ZIP Codes are for PO boxes (what do you use for that?) as well as “single location” destinations (again, what do you use for that?).
Also zip codes change at the pleasure and convenience of the USPS which cautions against any assumption that their areas are static.
My childhood home has changed zip code several times (and it’s a stick built house that has not moved).
That said, I believe that ZCTAs (pronounced zeek-tahs) do not change. Would that suit your purposes?
Also I’m still confused by what you mean by square footage. Usually square footage refers to a structure. If you want the area of a zip code that would usually be expressed in acres, hectares, square miles, or square kilometers.
Can you please clarify whether you are discussing land or buildings?
At any rate, if ZCTAs will work for you, there is a lot of data at the ZCTA level available for free from the U.S. Census Bureau.
I doubt they’d have the square footage of structures in a ZCTA, but they probably have the area of the ZCTA or the population and population density (from which you could derive the area).
This site gives land area for zip code 27587 of 104.79 square miles: https://www.unitedstateszipcodes.org/27587/#stats
Then this site has downloadable files for a fee: https://www.unitedstateszipcodes.org/zip-code-database/ Primary File Sample may have what you want.
Wikipedia uses TIGERweb/Places_CouSub_ConCity_SubMCD (MapServer)