I’m screwing around with Google Earth, and I turn on the postal codes layer, and stumble across 600HH.
Huh? I type it into Google, and get this info:
600HH is a ZIP code located in Illinois. About 0 people and 0 households are in this ZIP code. The area covered by this ZIP code includes 0 square miles of land and 1,085 square miles of water.
Decimal Degrees:
Latitude: 42.370605
Longitude: -88.119725
And indeed 600HH is all over the map. So–I get it. It’s the rivers and whatnot. But why? Is this a valid zip code? If I send a letter there…where does it go?
Oddly enough, it’s for census purposes. Because they tabulate based on zip codes, every area has to be represented by one. Of course, you sometimes get large bodies of water between different zip codes, and it would be clumsy to try and divvy them up in any sensible way, so they were all just slapped with the HH suffix.
There’s also an XX suffix which they give to large areas that they didn’t have enough information on to break up into zip code areas.
speaking of “watery zip codes”, I went to the Postal Service web site last night, and they have a list of all the zip codes in the New Orleans area that they will NOT deliver mail to.