FWIW if you're willing to deal with some 'fuzziness' and the occasional missing zip code that's commercial only, the ZCTA shapefiles are free and are close enough for many purposes: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g...

I suppose though, as long as you let the polygons map has uncontained areas, where no routes currently exist, it's a doable task to draw polygons around the limits of every route network, as long as you don't mind that they may have lots of weird ragged edges.

So those are not "polygons", but the actual polyline routes. But if you get that far you can probably figure out the GIS operation you want to do for your use case.

Those are the more specific routes as well (so more specific than the census ZCTA), although ZCTA should be good enough for most folks anyway to be honest.

Can someone with expertise in govt data rights explain? Do any other US govt agencies sell data to the private sector?

Just a visualization of zip codes. Start typing a number and it highlights the zip codes on a map. Mildly interesting at best, maybe someone will like it.

The "Zip+4" was the attempt to solve this- the 9 digit code narrows down the zipcode to a single block. But no one in the US cares enough to use these. It also doesn't solve the canonical problems the industry has with mapping data - people want to be able to put a pin in a random place on the map and pull up a clean zip code for data processing reasons.

"A full postcode identifies a group of addresses (typically around ten) or a major delivery point."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcodes_in_the_United_Kingdo...

Very complex problem globally, but the consequences can be high if you sell the wrong number type to a customer in the wrong location (and sometimes the EU and its member states can have precisely opposite legal requirements).

The US is relatively simple, with rate centers, but in some countries you actually have to draw geojson boundaries and find out exactly which location the company's headquarters resides within, down to the meter. If your boundaries aren't precise enough, you can get into trouble.

It's been about a decade since I was involved in that, so I'm curious if it's easier these days. There's not, however, a lot of incentive to fix it, as in many countries a few telco providers control everything.

We use https://github.com/OpenDataDE/State-zip-code-GeoJSON - it's from 2010, but open it in Claude and use the free-to-download data source to regen from the most recent census.

Blog post: https://austinhenley.com/blog/coord2state.html

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44175356

The original tiger/line or ZCTA data is probably good enough for everyone. Those are available "around." I think the census provides them. I believe the census has the zip+4, but it's been years and I might have gotten them from somewhere else.

The interesting thing in the data is the ESRI feature classes. I wonder what the heck those are.

Canada is one of the only major countries where the postal/zip code boundary data is not available as an open data set. Canada Post has a monopoly on that dataset. As a Canadian GIS person it drives me nuts as many other Candian government GIS programs have been active in the open data/open-source world for decades. Even crazier is that Statistics Canada has an open database of all addresses in the country here https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/lode/databases/oda that has a postal code column, but it's empty for all addresses.

Anyone who has tried to create their own dataset of polygons has usually ended up being chased down by Canada post. There is a company called Geocoder.ca who made a geocoder and when you passed in a street address with a postal code in it, it would keep track of that, and geocode based on the street address. Over time they built up a database of coordinates and postal codes and were able to generate their own approximate boundaries that where pretty accurate. Canada Post went after them: https://geocoder.ca/?sued=1 Their data is still free for non-profits, and relatively cheap for commercial purposes: https://geocoder.ca/?freedata=1 The only other open data related postal codes you will find easily available is Forward Sortation Code boundaries (FSA) which is the area that represents the first three characters of a Canadian Postal code. For example, postal code "N0R 1K0" would have an FSA of "N0R". For demo's and some analysis scenarios that can often be enough.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1655227/...

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=fcc+broad...

Because, well, ZIP codes aren't a spatial thing. I guess I have to update that?

And the fact that this isn't free is... a decision.

At first I thought maybe this could be used to correct gerrymandering, but then I remembered all my cynical deductions.

  s/offers/sells/

Cut them some slack. They are supposed to be budget neutral. It is difficult to do when A) they have to compete with the private sector while adhering to public sector rules and B) being sabotaged by Trump's postmaster general appointee.

USPS can charge funny money for the latest version.

Its funded with the expectation of hypercapitalist efficiency.

Somehow they actually run a profit off delivering junk mail annually, but they also have amortized expenses such as pensions etc which are sinking them. Again as per above, as a hyper regulated universal service they can't declare bankruptcy, while at the same time they're hypercapitalist and somehow have to make due as the financials sink lower and lower.

Some say this is an intentional plan to destroy the postal system. You can't run on a political platform of destroying the office, it would be very unpopular to propose everyone pay more for for-profit mail delivery and did I mention who one of my corporate campaign donors is? but you can intentionally sabotage the USPS by always making the worst choice at every decision intentionally, and then "unavoidably we have to shut the service down for no known clear reason it just doesn't work". My guess is the intentional destruction will continue unabated until closure is announced.

Its currently illegal for private carriers to deliver normal non-urgent letters because the USPS is a monopoly. You can put a document in an envelope or small box and UPS it, but its technically quite illegal at the federal level. My guess is eventually UPS or Amazon or fedex will purchase a law to be able to sell normal ground service physical first class mail delivery. I'm betting on Amazon winning a contract for this.

My bills are all emails lost in my spam folder and I "just know" to visit my car insurance website and electric company website every month or so.

Its worth considering that junk mail delivery is hyper profitable for the USPS, so thats probably not going away when mail delivery gets privatized. What is going away is the 82 cent postage stamp. UPS ground saver is a couple bucks. It'll be cheaper to take a picture of a letter then order prints of the picture at Walgreens nearby my mother than to mail her a greeting card LOL. Walgreens charges 39 cents for a post card sized digital print and their letter size prints are a ripoff at $4.50, better off sending multiple post card sized prints.

It's especially annoying in the UK case because there is such rich national data, but for so much of it the only join key is the postcode unit, which can change over time and for which no public polygon is available. Evidently the Ordnance Survey doesn't even keep historic vintages of its releases...

I don't think this will stop the bleed, but maybe it'll help that they are charging??