Rich Creek, VA

ZIP code 24147 is assigned to Rich Creek, VA, and falls within Giles 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 1,400 people live inside it.

At 227 residents per square mile spread over 6.16 square miles, 24147 reads as a small-town 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 run below the national median. At $49,167, 24147 sits in the lower half, ahead of 15% 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 24147 costs below the national median. A typical home is valued at $108,800 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $630 a month. The split between owning and renting is fairly even at 64.0% 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 65.1% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1958, making the housing here mid-century. The vacancy rate of 25.3% is high, which in many places reflects seasonal or second-home use rather than abandonment.

The population skews older than the national median, with a median age of 47.8 against 42 nationally. The average household holds 2.76 people, and 60.8% are family households.

Getting to work takes 29.2 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 95.8% of workers.

Beyond addressing mail, 24147 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, 24147 offers a compact profile of Rich Creek: 1,400 residents, a median household income of $49,167, 16.3% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 1.9%. 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. 24147 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Rich Creek 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.