Brooklyn, NY

ZIP code 11203 is assigned to Brooklyn, NY, and falls within Kings 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 76,853 people live inside it.

At 35,929 residents per square mile spread over 2.139 square miles, 11203 reads as a dense urban area. It is one of the more heavily populated postal codes in the country, 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 $68,028 puts 11203 near the middle of the pack, ahead of 47% 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 11203 costs far above the national median. A typical home is valued at $677,700 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $1,566 a month. The split between owning and renting is fairly even at 39.4% owner-occupied, which tends to indicate a mix of housing types rather than one dominant form.

The building stock is dominated by small multi-family buildings of two to four units, which account for 39.7% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1940, making the housing here largely pre-war.

The population skews broadly in line with the national age profile, with a median age of 43.2 against 42 nationally. The average household holds 2.55 people, and 64.5% are family households.

Getting to work takes 48.1 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is public transit at 55.7% of workers, while 55.7% take public transit. Commute patterns are one of the better proxies for how a place actually functions day to day.

Beyond addressing mail, 11203 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, 11203 offers a compact profile of Brooklyn: 76,853 residents, a median household income of $68,028, 25.9% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 8.0%. 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. 11203 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Brooklyn 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.