Worcester, MA

ZIP code 01603 is assigned to Worcester, MA, and falls within Worcester County. Like every US postal code, it began as a mail-routing device rather than a geographic boundary — the US Postal Service groups delivery routes under a single code so carriers and sorting equipment can process mail efficiently. Today it also serves as a practical shorthand for the area itself: roughly 21,034 people live inside it.

At 4,644 residents per square mile spread over 4.529 square miles, 01603 reads as a densely built-up area. It is a mid-sized postal code by population, and density shapes almost everything else on this page — how people get to work, whether they own or rent, and what housing costs.

Household earnings run below the national median. At $63,646, 01603 sits in the lower half, ahead of 39% of them. The US median for comparison is $70,109. Bear in mind that median income describes the midpoint household, not the average — it is not pulled upward by a handful of very high earners the way a mean would be.

Housing in 01603 costs close to the national median. A typical home is valued at $287,800 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $1,339 a month. The split between owning and renting is fairly even at 48.4% owner-occupied, which tends to indicate a mix of housing types rather than one dominant form.

The building stock is dominated by detached single-family houses, which account for 40.9% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1940, making the housing here largely pre-war. At 4.4%, vacancy is low — housing here is tightly held.

The population skews younger than the country as a whole, with a median age of 35.4 against 42 nationally. The average household holds 2.59 people, and 61.1% are family households.

Getting to work takes 28.7 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 68.5% of workers.

Beyond addressing mail, 01603 does a lot of quiet administrative work. Retailers use it to calculate shipping and sales tax at checkout. Insurers use it to set premiums, since risk profiles vary geographically. Employers and marketers use it to define service areas. Government agencies use it to route benefits and organise reporting. If you have ever been asked for a postal code by a form that clearly does not intend to send you anything, this is why.

For anyone weighing a move, 01603 offers a compact profile of Worcester: 21,034 residents, a median household income of $63,646, 24.2% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 8.4%. A handful of figures like these answer more relocation questions than most neighbourhood guides do.

One caution worth repeating: a postal code is not a neighbourhood. 01603 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Worcester may be split across more than one code. Boundaries also shift as USPS adjusts delivery routes. Treat the figures here as describing a delivery area, which is what they actually measure.