Woods Hole, MA

ZIP code 02543 is assigned to Woods Hole, MA, and falls within Barnstable 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 810 people live inside it.

At 72 residents per square mile spread over 11.323 square miles, 02543 reads as a rural area. It is a sparsely populated postal code, 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 track close to the national picture. The median of $73,611 puts 02543 near the middle of the pack, ahead of 56% 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 02543 costs far above the national median. A typical home is valued at $909,100 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $1,206 a month. Ownership dominates: 81.2% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, which usually signals an established residential area with relatively low turnover.

The building stock is dominated by detached single-family houses, which account for 96.2% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1954, making the housing here mid-century. The vacancy rate of 57.2% is high, which in many places reflects seasonal or second-home use rather than abandonment.

The population skews considerably older than the national median, with a median age of 68.5 against 42 nationally. Households average just 1.73 people, and 43.8% consist of one person living alone — a signature of areas with a lot of studio and one-bedroom stock.

Getting to work takes 26.5 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 65.1% of workers, while 13.5% walk. Commute patterns are one of the better proxies for how a place actually functions day to day.

Beyond addressing mail, 02543 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, 02543 offers a compact profile of Woods Hole: 810 residents, a median household income of $73,611, 86.3% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 4.7%. 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. 02543 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Woods Hole 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.