Columbus, GA population, income and ZIP codes

Columbus city is a mid-size city in Georgia, with 204,383 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #2 of 675 ranked by population — larger than 99% of them. The median age here is 35.1 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger profile than the country as a whole. At this size the Census also publishes one-year estimates; the five-year values used here are steadier and let you compare against smaller neighbours on the same basis.

Households in Columbus city earn a median of $56,622 a year, 27.9% below the national figure of $78,538 and within a couple of points of the $57,300 median for the 378 Georgia cities we cover. Median household income counts every pre-tax dollar arriving at an address — wages, self-employment, Social Security, pensions, interest and public assistance — for everyone living there, so multi-earner households pull the figure up even where individual pay is modest. Poverty reaches 18.8% of residents here, well above the 12.4% national rate, which is the single clearest signal in this dataset that median income here is carried by a narrow band of households.

The typical owner-occupied home in Columbus city is valued at $182,300, 39.9% below the national figure and 5% below the $191,600 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,072 a month, 23.8% below the national figure, or roughly $12,864 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 22.7% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 3.2×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 50.2% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. Small-area estimates still carry wider margins of error than state or national figures, so check the linked ACS tables before relying on them for lending, appraisal or legal work.