The greatest concentration of wealth in Fairfax County isn’t in the mansions of McLean or the waterfront estates near Mount Vernon that once counted former football team owner Dan Snyder among their residents.
The county’s wealthiest spot is, in fact, a sliver of Dunn Loring off of the I-495 and I-66 interchange that’s packed with single-family homes, according to the Business Journals Wealthy 1,000, a ranking of the 1,000 wealthiest zip codes in the U.S.
Originally released in May, the ranking was intended to identify where wealth is most heavily concentrated, evaluating roughly 21,800 zip codes based on income, home values, poverty rates and population. Zip codes with fewer than 1,000 residents or an area of less than 0.5 square miles were excluded, the Business Journals said.
The list features 53 zip codes in the D.C. area, led by the Logan and Dupont circle area (20009) in D.C., the Washington Business Journal reported last week. That includes 16 zip codes in Fairfax County, with Dunn Loring’s 22027 ranking the highest at no. 253.
Encompassing the 1 square mile between Gallows Road and I-495, the zip code’s 1,974 residents earn $113,174 per capita, and as of March, the typical home value was over $1.2 million. It has 670 housing units and a 0% poverty rate based on the most recent Census Bureau data, according to the ranking.
The Tysons area is generally well-represented on the Wealthy 1,000, which also includes spots in Reston, the Mount Vernon area, Oakton, Great Falls, Fairfax Station and Clifton:
- No. 289 — 22101 (McLean), income: $127,470, home value: $1.5 million
- No. 313 — 20194 (Reston), income: $95,100, home value: $736,339
- No. 322 — 22315 (Kingstowne), income: $71,465, home value: $658,002
- No. 359 — 22307 (Belle View), income: $94,394, home value: $707,096
- No. 364 — 22308 (Fort Hunt), income: $88,531, home value: $942,546
- No. 365 — 22180 (Vienna), income: $82,837, home value: $982,711
- No. 403 — 22181 (Vienna/Oakton), income: $88,153, home value: $1.03 million
- No. 423 — 20190 (Reston), income: $78,451, home value: $528,015
- No. 492 — 22182 (Wolf Trap/Tysons), income: $93,090, home value: $1.17 million
- No. 493 — 20171 (the McNair/Oak Hill area of Herndon), income: $71,891, home value: $787,899
- No. 518 — 22124 (Oakton), income: $102,145, home value: $1.02 million
- No. 593 — 22102 (Tysons/McLean), income: $104,439, home value: $767,234
- No. 685 — 22066 (Great Falls), income: $118,160, home value: $1.57 million
- No. 742 — 22039 (Fairfax Station), income: $93,690, home value: $1.12 million
- No. 792 — 20124 (Clifton), income: $89,683, home value: $957,755
Nationwide, nine of the top 10 zip codes were in the New York City metropolitan area, and California had 190 zip codes — the most of any state, according to the WBJ.
Several states like Montana, Alaska, West Virginia and Louisiana don’t appear in the rankings at all due to sparser populations or high poverty rates. The WBJ notes that the pandemic saw a surge in high-earners leaving cities for more rural areas and vacation hotspots.
