Paris, MI

ZIP code 49338 is assigned to Paris, MI, and falls within Mecosta 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 1,861 people live inside it.

At 33 residents per square mile spread over 56.87 square miles, 49338 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 $64,297 puts 49338 near the middle of the pack, ahead of 40% 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 49338 costs below the national median. A typical home is valued at $152,900 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $947 a month. Ownership dominates: 80.4% 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 60.9% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1985, making the housing here from the later twentieth century.

The population skews younger than the country as a whole, with a median age of 33.7 against 42 nationally. The average household holds 2.74 people, and 70.3% are family households.

Getting to work takes 27.2 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 86.4% of workers.

Beyond addressing mail, 49338 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, 49338 offers a compact profile of Paris: 1,861 residents, a median household income of $64,297, 19.3% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 7.5%. 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. 49338 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Paris 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.