Charleston, MO population, income and ZIP codes

Charleston city is a small town in Missouri, with 4,565 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #161 of 1,082 ranked by population — larger than 85% of them. The median age here is 42.9 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. At this population the ACS sample is small, so the margin of error around every dollar figure below is wide — treat the numbers as a band, not a point, and expect them to move between annual releases without the place itself changing.

Households in Charleston city earn a median of $35,139 a year, 55.3% below the national figure of $78,538 and 37% below the $55,543 median for the 374 Missouri cities we cover. The median is the midpoint household, not an average, so a handful of very high earners cannot drag it upward the way they distort a mean. Poverty reaches 31.4% 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 Charleston city is valued at $107,700, 64.5% below the national figure and 29% below the $152,400 peer median, while median gross rent runs $734 a month, 47.8% below the national figure, or roughly $8,808 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 25.1% 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 3.1×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 50.8% 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.