ZIP code 21797

ZIP 21797 is a mid-size town in Howard County, Maryland, with 8,772 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #192 of 477 ranked by population — larger than 59% of them. The median age here is 44 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. 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 ZIP 21797 earn a median of $185,435 a year, 136.1% above the national figure of $78,538. 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 4.7% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 21797 is valued at $713,400, 135.1% above the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,241 a month, 11.7% below the national figure, or roughly $14,892 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 8% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is cheap relative to what people here earn. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 3.8×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 89.9% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, an owner-dominated market where rental listings are scarce and rent medians rest on a thin sample. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

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.

ZIP 21797 is tabulated inside Howard County, Maryland, one of 20 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 477 across Maryland. Population sits in the small-town band, typically one main street plus the addresses that feed into it. County assignment on this page follows the largest share of the ZIP's land area, which matters where a delivery route crosses a county line: mail addressed to 21797 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 21797 reports a median household income of $185,435, 4% above the $177,874 county median, and 78% above the $104,338 typical MD ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $713,400, 6% above the county figure and 78% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,241 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Maryland charges 6% statewide, and no local sales tax is layered on top, so the state rate is the full amount collected in 21797.

Everything above comes from the Census Bureau American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates for this ZIP Code Tabulation Area, with sales tax rates traced to the state revenue agency. Five-year estimates pool sixty months of responses, so they are stable enough to compare 21797 with its neighbours but always trail the current year, and any value the Census suppressed for sample size is shown as unpublished rather than filled in with a model.