Chattanooga, TN

ZIP code 37406 is assigned to Chattanooga, TN, and falls within Hamilton 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 12,867 people live inside it.

At 1,060 residents per square mile spread over 12.135 square miles, 37406 reads as a suburban 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 are well below the national median. At $42,993, 37406 ranks among the lower-income postal codes, ahead of 8% 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 37406 costs below the national median. A typical home is valued at $150,300 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $944 a month. The split between owning and renting is fairly even at 47.2% 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 74.9% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1966, making the housing here mid-century.

The population skews younger than the country as a whole, with a median age of 35.9 against 42 nationally. The average household holds 2.47 people, and 60.9% are family households.

Getting to work takes 20.4 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 73.9% of workers.

Beyond addressing mail, 37406 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, 37406 offers a compact profile of Chattanooga: 12,867 residents, a median household income of $42,993, 16.1% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 10.8%. 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. 37406 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Chattanooga 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.