Los Angeles, CA

ZIP code 90001 is assigned to Los Angeles, CA, and falls within Los Angeles 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 56,403 people live inside it.

At 17,196 residents per square mile spread over 3.28 square miles, 90001 reads as a dense urban 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 $60,751, 90001 sits in the lower half, ahead of 34% 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 90001 costs well above the national median. A typical home is valued at $513,300 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $1,471 a month. The split between owning and renting is fairly even at 35.6% 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 71.2% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1950, making the housing here mid-century. At 4.2%, vacancy is low — housing here is tightly held.

The population skews younger than the country as a whole, with a median age of 31.7 against 42 nationally. Households are relatively large at 4.2 people on average, with 84.0% classified as family households.

Getting to work takes 37.3 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 69.9% of workers.

Beyond addressing mail, 90001 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, 90001 offers a compact profile of Los Angeles: 56,403 residents, a median household income of $60,751, 7.0% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 9.7%. 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. 90001 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Los Angeles 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.