Seattle, WA

ZIP code 98109 is assigned to Seattle, WA, and falls within King 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 32,552 people live inside it.

At 16,823 residents per square mile spread over 1.935 square miles, 98109 reads as a dense urban area. It is a populous 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 here sit well above the national picture. The median household income of $130,845 places 98109 in the upper reaches of American postal codes, ahead of 94% 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 98109 costs far above the national median. A typical home is valued at $986,000 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $2,329 a month. This is firmly renter territory — 78.6% 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 larger apartment buildings of twenty units or more, which account for 54.5% of housing units here. The median construction year is 2003, making the housing here relatively modern.

The population skews younger than the country as a whole, with a median age of 32.1 against 42 nationally. Households average just 1.58 people, and 58.9% consist of one person living alone — a signature of areas with a lot of studio and one-bedroom stock.

Getting to work takes 24.7 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is worked from home at 37.3% of workers, while 11.1% take public transit, 21.7% walk, 37.3% work from home. Commute patterns are one of the better proxies for how a place actually functions day to day.

Beyond addressing mail, 98109 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, 98109 offers a compact profile of Seattle: 32,552 residents, a median household income of $130,845, 78.1% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 4.0%. 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. 98109 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Seattle 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.