Watford City, ND

ZIP code 58854 is assigned to Watford City, ND, and falls within McKenzie 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 9,345 people live inside it.

At 14 residents per square mile spread over 666.12 square miles, 58854 reads as a rural area. It is a smaller 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 run above the national median. At $88,234, 58854 sits comfortably in the upper half, ahead of 74% 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 58854 costs well above the national median. A typical home is valued at $387,700 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $1,212 a month. The split between owning and renting is fairly even at 48.6% 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 44.4% of housing units here. The median construction year is 2012, making the housing here relatively modern. The vacancy rate of 23.3% is high, which in many places reflects seasonal or second-home use rather than abandonment.

The population skews notably young, with a median age of 28.8 against 42 nationally. The average household holds 2.47 people, and 55.9% are family households.

Getting to work takes 20.9 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 76.1% of workers.

Beyond addressing mail, 58854 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, 58854 offers a compact profile of Watford City: 9,345 residents, a median household income of $88,234, 23.5% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 1.8%. 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. 58854 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Watford City 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.