Bovina, TX

ZIP code 79009 is assigned to Bovina, TX, and falls within Parmer 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 1,795 people live inside it.

At 15 residents per square mile spread over 121.826 square miles, 79009 reads as a rural 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 are well below the national median. At $44,183, 79009 ranks among the lower-income postal codes, ahead of 10% 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 79009 costs below the national median. A typical home is valued at $113,500 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $853 a month. The split between owning and renting is fairly even at 62.9% 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 82.1% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1967, making the housing here mid-century.

The population skews broadly in line with the national age profile, with a median age of 37.4 against 42 nationally. Households are relatively large at 3.26 people on average, with 71.8% classified as family households.

Getting to work takes 23.6 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 76.0% of workers.

Beyond addressing mail, 79009 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, 79009 offers a compact profile of Bovina: 1,795 residents, a median household income of $44,183, 9.9% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 1.3%. 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. 79009 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Bovina 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.