[Talk-us] Postal Code Extract (zip vs zcta)

[dies38061 at mypacks.net]

>From the page which Bryce referred to in http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-us/2013-September/011738.html comes the following passage:

"The term ZCTA was created to differentiate between this entity and true USPS ZIP Codes.
ZCTA is a trademark of the U.S. Census Bureau; ZIP Code is a trademark of the U.S. Postal Service."

Therefore, ZCTA information _approximates_ ZIP information for census purposes.  If you want to map/use ZIP code information, don't use the ZCTA information to do it, I would infer.--ceyockey