Burlington, VT

ZIP code 05401 is assigned to Burlington, VT, and falls within Chittenden 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 31,676 people live inside it.

At 5,201 residents per square mile spread over 6.09 square miles, 05401 reads as a densely built-up area. It is a populous 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 run below the national median. At $60,532, 05401 sits in the lower half, ahead of 33% 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 05401 costs well above the national median. A typical home is valued at $463,300 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $1,614 a month. This is firmly renter territory — 71.2% of occupied homes are rented, a pattern typical of city centres, student areas and neighbourhoods with a lot of apartment stock.

The building stock is dominated by mid-sized apartment buildings, which account for 33.1% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1943, making the housing here largely pre-war. At 3.9%, vacancy is low — housing here is tightly held.

The population skews notably young, with a median age of 25.4 against 42 nationally. The average household holds 2.37 people, and 30.2% are family households.

Getting to work takes 18.9 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 44.0% of workers, while 19.8% walk, 15.8% work from home. Commute patterns are one of the better proxies for how a place actually functions day to day.

Beyond addressing mail, 05401 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, 05401 offers a compact profile of Burlington: 31,676 residents, a median household income of $60,532, 63.1% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 5.0%. 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. 05401 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Burlington 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.