Shapes of ZIP codes - polygons for each ZIP code

Question

I'm looking for an open data set that contains polygons with the shape of each ZIP code in the US. GeoJSON format would be ideal.

I've done a bunch of searching, and I've been able to find shape data for counties, but not for ZIP codes. Searching for it with Google has trouble because it finds a lot of .zip files, rather than ZIP codes.

Answer 1

The Census provides the dataset as a shapefile. I loaded it into my CartoDB account so you can download it as a GeoJSON using the following API call:

http://eschbacher.cartodb.com/api/v2/sql?q=SELECT%20*%20FROM%20us_zipcodes&format=geojson&filename=us_census_zipcodes

The download as GeoJSON comes to around 135 MB.

You can view a map of the data here.

Answer 2

The GIS site also has a useful answer

• Most Up-To-Date Source for US Zip Code Boundaries

One thing to keep in mind is the fact that Zip Codes are not polygons, and therefore do not have boundaries.

That answer and the others has resources for various GIS softwares:

for example, ArcGIS

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By the way, search "zip codes" in quotation marks to make sure the results aren't exclusively zip files. Here's my query.