Lancaster, PA population, income and ZIP codes

Lancaster city is a small city in Pennsylvania, with 57,683 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #8 of 2,002 ranked by population — larger than 99% of them. The median age here is 31.9 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.

Households in Lancaster city earn a median of $63,421 a year, 19.2% below the national figure of $78,538 and 11% below the $71,118 median for the 982 Pennsylvania cities we cover. This figure covers the household, not the worker: two people on ordinary wages at one address outrank a single professional in the same table. Poverty reaches 20.7% 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 Lancaster city is valued at $203,700, 32.9% below the national figure and 5% above the $193,200 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,177 a month, 16.3% below the national figure, or roughly $14,124 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 22.3% 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. 47.5% 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.