Methodology

1. Geography: ZIP codes vs. ZCTAs

A ZIP code is a USPS delivery route, not a geographic area, and the Census Bureau does not publish statistics for it directly. Every demographic figure on this site is reported for the corresponding ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA), the Census Bureau's approximation of a ZIP code built from whole census blocks. For most residential Los Angeles ZIPs the two match closely; they diverge for post-office-box, single-building and industrial ZIPs. Where the ACS reports no resident population or income (for example 90071, a Downtown office-tower ZIP), the page says so and the ZIP is excluded from rankings and reports. The dataset covers the City of Los Angeles residential ZIPs plus a selection of surrounding cities in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and Ventura counties; it is not every ZIP in the five-county region, and county pages describe only the ZIPs in this dataset.

2. Primary source: ACS 5-Year Estimates

Population, density, median age, median household income, per-capita income, median home value, median gross rent, owner- and renter-occupancy, total housing units, high-school and bachelor's attainment (population 25 and over), poverty rate, unemployment and land area come from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates, retrieved from data.census.gov at the ZCTA level. The 5-year product is used because 1-year estimates are only published for geographies of 65,000 or more people. A 5-year estimate describes the average condition across the collection window rather than a single point in time. Each field maps to a standard ACS detailed table — for example B19013 for median household income, B25077 for median home value, B25064 for median gross rent, B25003 for tenure, B17001 for poverty, B15003 for educational attainment and B23025 for employment status — so any figure can be checked directly on data.census.gov by table and ZCTA.

3. The $2,000,001 home-value cap

The ACS top-codes median home value at $2,000,001. ZIPs whose true median is above that (Beverly Hills 90210 and 90212, Santa Monica 90402, Bel Air 90077, Brentwood 90049) show the cap, and any ratio computed from it is a floor. Our reports mark these with a plus sign; ZIP pages show the capped value as reported.

4. Figures we compute ourselves

• Price-to-income ratio = median home value ÷ median household income. 3.0 is the long-run U.S. norm; ratios above 5.0 are conventionally described as severely unaffordable.
• Rent-to-income ratio = (median gross rent × 12) ÷ median household income, as a percentage. Above 30% is "cost-burdened" and above 50% "severely cost-burdened" under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development definitions. Both ratios use ZIP-level medians and describe the area, not any individual household.
• Metro benchmarks in reports are medians across the ZIPs in the dataset with each ZIP weighted equally, not population-weighted.
• Nearby ZIPs are the closest ZIPs in the dataset by straight-line distance between ZIP centroids.
• Rankings sort ZIPs on a single ACS field. Where a report filters on several conditions at once, the exact conditions are stated on the page.

5. Editorial content

The description and FAQs on each ZIP page, the city and county overviews, and every report are written by the LA Zip Codes Data Team from that area's specific data. We do not accept sponsored rankings, paid placements or real-estate referral fees, and no page's content is influenced by advertisers. Crime statistics are not published on this site: the ACS does not collect them, and ZIP-level crime data is not comparable across the region's police jurisdictions.

6. Known limitations

• ACS estimates are survey-based with margins of error that grow as population shrinks. Downtown ZIPs (90013, 90014, 90021) and other small-population ZIPs carry wide margins; small differences between such ZIPs are not meaningful.
• Median home value is the owner's estimate from the ACS questionnaire, not a transaction price, and is capped at $2,000,001.
• Median gross rent includes utilities and covers all occupied rental units, including long-tenured and rent-stabilized leases, so it runs well below current asking rents in Los Angeles.
• ZIPs with large student populations (around USC 90007 and UCLA 90024) show depressed median incomes that describe residents, not the buyer or renter pool.
• ZIP-level medians describe areas, not households.

7. Update schedule

The Census Bureau releases new ACS 5-Year Estimates each December. We rebuild the dataset after each release, re-run every derived figure and report, and re-review the editorial text on pages whose numbers moved materially. Between annual rebuilds, corrections are applied as they are found.

8. Corrections

If a figure on this site does not match its Census source, or a city assignment, nearby-ZIP list or description is wrong, tell us with the ZIP code and the field in question. We verify against the primary source and correct the page; substantive corrections are noted on the affected page. Read more about the site and the team on the About page.