Is there a corresponding ZCTA for every for every United States Postal Service ZIP Code?
Based on the January 2000 list of ZIP Codes from the USPS’s Delivery Type File, the ZCTA delineation process excluded 10,068 ZIP Codes in the United States and Puerto Rico (not counting overseas military ZIP Codes). These included 2,523 ZIP Codes that served specific companies or organizations with high volumes of mail and 6,419 ZIP Codes dedicated to Post Office (PO) Box and/or general delivery addresses primarily located in areas otherwise served by rural route or city style mail delivery. The remainder represents ZIP Codes that were either inactive or insufficiently represented in the MAF and therefore did not become ZCTAs. New ZIP Codes created by the USPS since January 2000 will not have a corresponding Census 2000 ZCTA. The 2003 TIGER/Line Files will contain updated ZCTAs which (while maintaining the restrictions mentioned above) will correspond to the October, 2002 list of ZIP Codes from the USPS’s Delivery Type File.
