Postal address city names commonly used outside of that city’s boundaries

[WillWeaverRVA]

Most of the country's land area is outside any city limits. But rural addresses have to put something down for the city name...

County name? There are some "Henrico" addresses in Virginia despite there being nothing below the county level with that name.

Portions of Goochland County officially have Henrico, VA 23238 addresses despite obviously not being in Henrico County. A number of businesses in that ZIP code area use "Richmond, VA" instead, which is even worse since they're even further from Richmond than Henrico is.

"Henrico, VA" originated with the common idea that because a large portion of Henrico and Chesterfield Counties had "Richmond, VA" addresses and ZIP codes, business tax dollars meant for the counties were being sent to the City of Richmond. Henrico County changed all "Richmond, VA" addresses to "Henrico, VA" in 2008 (but "Glen Allen, VA" remained for 23059 and 23060, portions of which are in Hanover and Goochland Counties). This even affected Highland Springs, which historically got to use "Highland Springs, VA" despite not being an incorporated town - some businesses and the county-owned Henrico Theater use "Henrico, VA 23075" rather than "Highland Springs, VA". Given the reasoning, it's a bit weird that there are Goochland locations - including a very large business park and the Capital One corporate campus - that use a Henrico ZIP code. You'd think Goochland County would be complaining about losing tax dollars too.

Chesterfield County did the same thing a few years later, but it was much more complicated for them because there are already CDPs named Chesterfield and Chester. So everything not in Midlothian or Moseley became either "North Chesterfield, VA" or "South Chesterfield, VA". Interestingly this has been the case for over 10 years now but some forms still don't recognize North or South Chesterfield as valid place names, requiring one to use Richmond instead.

[SD Mapman]

Johnson County, KS is like this as well, any of the "662XX" zip codes have a USPS "city" of Shawnee Mission, despite there not being a city named Shawnee Mission. You can use the actual city name instead if you'd like, however.

In rural areas this happens everywhere, since there usually can't be two ZIP codes per city at minimum (one for rural area, one for within city limits). This does lead to rural folks having to pay city sales tax rates on online purchases (since online vendors use the ZIP code to determine sales tax) unless they complain directly to the vendor and are successful in the complaint. My proposal to fix this would be to have USPS allow township/census county divisions as alternate labels for non-city addresses (i.e. instead of 19937 Red Hill Rd Spearfish, SD you'd have 19937 Red Hill Rd North Lawrence, SD or instead of 25991 478th Ave Brandon, SD you'd have 25991 478th Ave Mapleton Township, SD) but that would be an inordinate amount of bureaucratic fluff to add to the system to benefit not that many people.

[Flint1979]

Metro Airport might be entirely in Romulus and not connected to any other part of the City of Detroit but the airport has a Detroit, MI address. It's Detroit, MI 48242. The rest of Romulus is in the 48174 and 48184 zip code. 48174 dips down into Huron Township as well and 48184 extends into neighboring Wayne, MI.

48184 however has both Wayne and Romulus addresses.

[zzcarp]

There's lots of instances in the Denver metro. Many unincorporated Adams County mailing addresses are listed as Denver.

For the 80020/80021 zip codes, the post offices are located in Broomfield even though they are geographically split between Broomfield and Westminster (and some portions of unincorporated Jefferson County). While using Westminster as the city will get you your mail, many systems for you to use Broomfield as the address.

Perhaps the most amazing example is my new office, located in the Inverness development located in parts of unincorporated Douglas and Arapahoe counties. Yet the 80112 zip code uses Englewood for its mailing address, even though it contains a portion of the City of Centennial, is adjacent to the City of Lone Tree, and is even nearer to the City of Greenwood Village than Englewood. Englewood proper at its closest point is 3.4 miles from the far northwest corner of the 80112 zip code.

[US 89]

Probably somewhere around half of Salt Lake County's population has an 841xx zip code and thus a "Salt Lake City, UT" USPS mailing address, even though only around 17% of the county population lives in city limits. The rest of the 841 zip codes are spread across a whole host of suburban cities, metro townships, and unincorporated areas.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I noticed a number of locations in inner-ring Minneapolis suburbs such as Edina, Golden Valley, and Richfield have "Minneapolis" when I pull them up on Google Maps (but that could also simply be because Google Maps just fucking sucks now).

[OCGuy81]

Two that I know of in the Portland metropolitan area are ZIP codes 97223 and 97224.

Most of the time it defaults to Portland.

But it COULD be any of the following:

Tigard
Durham
King City

[StogieGuy7]

Most of the country's land area is outside any city limits. But rural addresses have to put something down for the city name...

County name? There are some "Henrico" addresses in Virginia despite there being nothing below the county level with that name.

Portions of Goochland County officially have Henrico, VA 23238 addresses despite obviously not being in Henrico County. A number of businesses in that ZIP code area use "Richmond, VA" instead, which is even worse since they're even further from Richmond than Henrico is.

"Henrico, VA" originated with the common idea that because a large portion of Henrico and Chesterfield Counties had "Richmond, VA" addresses and ZIP codes, business tax dollars meant for the counties were being sent to the City of Richmond. Henrico County changed all "Richmond, VA" addresses to "Henrico, VA" in 2008 (but "Glen Allen, VA" remained for 23059 and 23060, portions of which are in Hanover and Goochland Counties). This even affected Highland Springs, which historically got to use "Highland Springs, VA" despite not being an incorporated town - some businesses and the county-owned Henrico Theater use "Henrico, VA 23075" rather than "Highland Springs, VA". Given the reasoning, it's a bit weird that there are Goochland locations - including a very large business park and the Capital One corporate campus - that use a Henrico ZIP code. You'd think Goochland County would be complaining about losing tax dollars too.

Chesterfield County did the same thing a few years later, but it was much more complicated for them because there are already CDPs named Chesterfield and Chester. So everything not in Midlothian or Moseley became either "North Chesterfield, VA" or "South Chesterfield, VA". Interestingly this has been the case for over 10 years now but some forms still don't recognize North or South Chesterfield as valid place names, requiring one to use Richmond instead.

Yep, we lived in Henrico County during the 1970s and our address was "Richmond, VA 23229"  Interesting that this has changed, but then again much of that area has changed - a lot.

[frankenroad]

Both Cincinnati and Columbus have this phenomenon, as well.

In Cincinnati, it is fairly common to see the specific city/town used, and the Post office allows both.  For example, ZIP Code 45215 covers several inner-ring Cincinnati suburbs, and it is appropriate to address either way, e.g.,  348 Wentworth Ave., Wyoming, OH  45215 and 348 Wentworth Ave.., Cincinnati, OH  45215 are both acceptable for the same house.

I would guess that of all the people with a 452xx ZIP code, fewer than 40% actually live in the city of Cincinnati, but they all have Cincinnati addresses.  As does the Cincinnati airport, located in Boone County, KY (45275).

[Henry]

Many of the Los Angeles enclaves (Inglewood, San Fernando, Pasadena, etc.) use the same ZIP code ranges as the city itself, so for that reason, they are considered to be L.A. when they really are not (unlike Hollywood, which actually is).

[Dough4872]

This is very common in Delaware. The Wilmington and Newark mailing addresses are used in suburban areas well outside the city limits for both cities. For example, the Christiana Mall has a Newark mailing address although the mall is 5 miles east of the city of Newark and well outside the city limits.

[bing101]

The Bay Area is one place where this DOESN'T happen much:

- San Francisco zip codes (941xx) entirely always apply to things that are part of San Francisco city limits, plus the airport (94128). 

- There are so many individual suburban cities that basically have a zip code or two either only to itself or, in some rare cases (i.e. Belvedere/Tiburon) shared between two small communities.

For comparison, Sacramento is an example of this exact concept, where the postal concept of "Sacramento" is much larger than the city.

City limit map:
https://www.cityofsacramento.org/Public-Works/Transportation/Traffic-Data-Maps/City-Map

Sacramento's main zip code range is in the 95811-95838 range, though with 95826 being shared with the unincorporated district of Rosemont:
https://www.cccarto.com/ca/sacramento/

However, in that range, there are several places that use "Sacramento" as their postal place name, but are themselves not in city limits:

95821 - other than a small sliver that is in city limits (along Business 80/old US 40), much of this is the unincorporated suburb of Arcade
95823 and 95824 - partially in the city, partially in unincorporated South Sacramento (Parkway) which is visually indistinguishable from the portion of South Sacramento in city limits
95825 - southern half is in Sacramento, but the vast majority is in the unincorporated suburb of Arden
95827 - Rosemont
95828 and 95829 and 95830 - Vineyard
95832 - a portion is the town of Freeport

95841 and 95842 - Foothill Farms
95864 - entirely in Arden

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadmoor,_California
Here's a rare Bay Area Example Broadmoor, CA is counted as Unincorporated San Mateo County. However it's zip codes are associated with Daly City, CA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daly_City,_California

94014 and 94015
I'm familiar with the Arden-Arcade one where it's identified by using a Sacramento zip code.

[Road Hog]

Postal boundaries were established long before future city boundaries. Those boundaries endure and there is a lot of inertia involved with changing them. Ditto with local school districts and with landline phone service.

[KCRoadFan]

Many of the Los Angeles enclaves (Inglewood, San Fernando, Pasadena, etc.) use the same ZIP code ranges as the city itself, so for that reason, they are considered to be L.A. when they really are not (unlike Hollywood, which actually is).

Conversely, the San Fernando Valley has this phenomenon in reverse: it uses a hodgepodge of "city" names such as Canoga Park, Reseda, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Van Nuys, etc. - complete with their own zip code ranges of 913xx, 914xx, and 916xx, as opposed to 900xx for L.A. "proper" - yet in reality, they're all within Los Angeles city limits.

Basically, the Valley is the Queens of the West Coast, at least in terms of how the Postal Service treats their addresses (well, minus the whole hyphenated address number thing, that is).