Seattle, WA

ZIP code 98164 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 235 people live inside it.

At 58,750 residents per square mile spread over 0.004 square miles, 98164 reads as a dense urban 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 here sit well above the national picture. The median household income of $250,001 places 98164 in the upper reaches of American postal codes, ahead of 100% 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 98164 costs far above the national median. A typical home is valued at $714,600 against a US median of $207,500. Ownership dominates: 83.9% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, which usually signals an established residential area with relatively low turnover.

The building stock is dominated by larger apartment buildings of twenty units or more, which account for 75.9% of housing units here. At 0.0%, vacancy is low — housing here is tightly held.

The population skews broadly in line with the national age profile, with a median age of 43.1 against 42 nationally. Households average just 1.72 people, and 3.6% consist of one person living alone — a signature of areas with a lot of studio and one-bedroom stock.

Getting to work takes 16.5 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is walked at 41.2% of workers, while 41.2% walk, 29.1% work from home. Commute patterns are one of the better proxies for how a place actually functions day to day.

Beyond addressing mail, 98164 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, 98164 offers a compact profile of Seattle: 235 residents, a median household income of $250,001, 98.4% 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. 98164 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.