ZIP Code and ZCTA Maps

Users must make a distinction between "ZIP Codes" and "ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTA's)," new statistical entities developed by the U.S. Census Bureau for tabulating summary statistics from Census 2000.

ZIP Codes - U.S. Postal Service designations designed to facilitate mail delivery. The ZCTA was developed to overcome the difficulties in precisely defining the land area covered by each ZIP Code. Defining the extent of an area is necessary in order to accurately tabulate census data for that area.
Zip Code Tabulation Areas - generalized area representations of USPS ZIP Code service areas. Each one is built by aggregating Census 2000 blocks, whose addresses use a given ZIP Code, into a ZCTA which gets that ZIP Code assigned as its ZCTA code. They represent the majority of five-digit ZIP Codes found in a given area. For those areas where it is difficult to determine the prevailing five-digit ZIP Code, the higher-level three-digit ZIP Code is used for the ZCTA code.

2000 ZIP Code Maps

Kansas

Missouri

2000 ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) Maps

Kansas

Missouri