Find the city, state, and county behind any US ZIP code
Paste a five-digit ZIP code below and we’ll match it to its city, state, and county — useful for double-checking a shipping address, confirming where a package is actually headed, or figuring out which ZIP covers a place you’re addressing mail to.
Look up a ZIP code
Enter a five-digit US ZIP code to see its city, state, and county.
ZIP codes don’t always mean what the envelope implies
A ZIP code was built to organize mail routes for the postal service — not to trace neat lines around a city or county. That mismatch causes more confusion than people expect. A single ZIP code can stretch across parts of two counties. Some ZIP codes span a state line entirely. And the “city” printed on an envelope is frequently just the name of the post office handling that route, not the legal town the recipient actually lives in.
That’s the gap this tool is built to close. Instead of guessing from a ZIP code alone, you get the actual city, state, and county tied to it, pulled from official reference data — so you can sanity-check an address before a package ships, confirm a delivery zone, or just settle an argument about where a ZIP code really belongs.
Active US ZIP codes
The Postal Service maintains tens of thousands of ZIP codes across all 50 states, plus territories and military addresses.
ZIP code types
Standard ZIPs cover physical delivery areas. PO Box ZIPs serve box-only stations. Unique ZIPs are assigned to single high-volume addresses.
ZIPs crossing state lines
More than a hundred US ZIP codes technically span two states, usually along shared metro areas or rural borders.
Getting an accurate result in three steps
- Type the ZIP code exactly as written. Use all five digits, including any leading zero — ZIP codes in the Northeast and parts of Puerto Rico commonly start with 0, and dropping that digit will return the wrong match or no match at all.
- Switch modes if you’re going the other direction. If you know the city but need the ZIP code, toggle to “City → ZIP” and type the city and state instead. Larger cities return multiple ZIP codes, since one city can be split across many postal routes.
- Cross-check the county if it matters for your purpose. County lines and ZIP code boundaries frequently don’t line up, so if you’re dealing with anything county-specific — local tax rates, court jurisdiction, filing paperwork — treat the county result as a strong starting point, not a legal determination.
Common ZIP code prefixes by region
The first digit of a ZIP code roughly indicates the region of the country, moving from east to west. This is a rough map, not a precise boundary — but it’s useful for a quick sanity check.
| First digit | General region |
|---|---|
| 0 | Northeast — Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Puerto Rico |
| 1 | Northeast — New York, Pennsylvania |
| 2 | Mid-Atlantic and Southeast — Virginia, Maryland, D.C., the Carolinas |
| 3 | Southeast — Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi |
| 4 | Midwest — Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky |
| 5 | Upper Midwest — Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin |
| 6 | Central Plains — Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska |
| 7 | South Central — Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana |
| 8 | Mountain West — Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico |
| 9 | West Coast and Pacific — California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii |
Things worth knowing before you rely on a ZIP code lookup
- A ZIP code’s listed “city” is often the main post office name for that delivery area, not necessarily the incorporated town or municipality your recipient would say they live in.
- New ZIP codes are added and occasionally retired as population and delivery routes shift, so a lookup tool is only as current as the data behind it.
- Some ZIP codes exist purely for PO boxes or a single large organization — a university, a government agency, a major company — rather than a residential area.
- Military ZIP codes (APO/FPO/DPO addresses) don’t map to a normal city or state at all, since they route through military postal systems instead.
- If a package tracking page shows an unexpected city for a ZIP code, that’s usually not an error — it’s simply the postal routing name, and the actual delivery still goes to the correct street address.