Little Rock, AR

ZIP code 72201 is assigned to Little Rock, AR, and falls within Pulaski 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 721 people live inside it.

At 589 residents per square mile spread over 1.225 square miles, 72201 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 above the national median. At $112,045, 72201 sits comfortably in the upper half, ahead of 89% 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 72201 costs close to the national median. A typical home is valued at $262,300 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $1,344 a month. This is firmly renter territory — 69.6% of occupied homes are rented, a pattern typical of city centres, student areas and neighbourhoods with a lot of apartment stock.

The building stock is dominated by mid-sized apartment buildings, which account for 53.5% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1985, making the housing here from the later twentieth century. The vacancy rate of 26.1% is high, which in many places reflects seasonal or second-home use rather than abandonment.

The population skews younger than the country as a whole, with a median age of 30 against 42 nationally. Households average just 1.55 people, and 56.7% consist of one person living alone — a signature of areas with a lot of studio and one-bedroom stock.

Getting to work takes 14.7 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is carpooled at 44.9% of workers.

Beyond addressing mail, 72201 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, 72201 offers a compact profile of Little Rock: 721 residents, a median household income of $112,045, 78.2% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 0.0%. 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. 72201 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Little Rock 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.