Another complexity that surprises folks is you can't guarantee a one-to-many state-to-ZIP Code relationship. There are several (I forgot offhand how many, I used to have them memorized) that span across state boundaries.
I think Zillow does it best. You just type your address in a box and it looks up the normalized full address.
That makes everyone happy.
However, if you look at zip+4 for dwellings, it’s still few. My cul de sac with 5 houses has zip + 4 different from house on connecting street.
There’s a less-known 11-digit zip code which is unique for every delivery point (so down to the individual residence). I’m not sure if multiple apartments in the same building have distinct 11-digit zip codes, but this does imply that a zip+4 cannot have more than 100 delivery points within its bounds.
Open Google Maps, go to Central Park in NYC, search for apartments and randomly pick one. Then go USPS Zip Code lookup (https://tools.usps.com/zip-code-lookup.htm) and punch in the address leaving off any apartment number so it will show all available addresses. I used 225 E 63rd St New York, NY. Appears they have 8 Zip + 4 assigned to the complex.
I tried again with building in Philly and same story. Each floor of 16 apartments got its own Zip + 4.
I lived in a house; the other location was a nail spa. Strangers sometimes visited thinking they were at the right address (they weren't) to get their nails'did (they didn't).
I'm thinking an opportunity was missed here.
1. They kept the Chicago grid on the edge streets of the village so that, e.g., 110 North Austin would be across the street from 111 North Austin and
2. If they had kept the usual new 100 at each block system, the north-south streets on the south end would have been 1200–1249 which would have been identical to the numbers of the next block south in Berwyn and Cicero so the last block on the north-south streets is instead 1150–1199.
Contrast the borders of Los Angeles which in some areas are almost fractal in their complexity (there are buildings which straddle the boundary between L.A. and its neighbors and many blocks where adjacent buildings are in different cities). For whatever reason, the powers that be decided that the incompatible address numbering between adjacent cities should be retained so you will have weird discontinuities in building numbering along a block depending on what city the building lies in. I remember my wife having a doctor’s appointment in a building which was one of those which crossed the border so it had two different addresses assigned to it, one for Los Angeles and one for Beverly Hills.
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g...
Stop Using Zip Codes for Geospatial Analysis (2019) - 184 points, 131 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42974728
Indeed. My zip is from a neighboring state but has a -xxxx to route specifically to my mail distribution center. Even without the last 4 digits they manage to figure it out, just slower.