53033 FipsDecoder
10003 County FIPS Code

New Castle County

Delaware · County seat: Wilmington · Active county or equivalent

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FIPS code 10003 is New Castle County, Delaware. With a population of 570,567 (2022 ACS estimate), it ranks #1 in Delaware and #119 nationally. New Castle County is part of the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD. The state FIPS code for Delaware is 10. This code is used in Census Bureau, BLS, EPA, HUD, and USDA federal datasets to identify this county.

County FIPS

10003

State FIPS

10

DE

Population

570,567

2022 ACS · #119 nationally

Density

1,338.5/mi²

people per sq mile

Land Area

426

sq miles

Urban/Rural

Metro — 1M+ population

RUCC 1

How This FIPS Code Works

10 003
10 = State FIPS (Delaware)
003 = County FIPS

The 5-digit FIPS code 10003 is formed by combining the 2-digit state identifier 10 (Delaware) with the 3-digit county identifier 003. Together they uniquely identify New Castle County in every US federal dataset. No two counties share the same 5-digit FIPS code.

Census ACS Data for FIPS 10003

From the 2022 ACS 5-year estimates — the same values you'd retrieve by querying the Census API with county FIPS 10003.

Median Household Income

$85,309

ACS B19013_001E

Poverty Rate

10.5%

ACS B17001 (below poverty level)

Median Age

39.0

ACS B01002_001E

Metropolitan Area

Adjacent Counties (7)

Counties that share a border with New Castle County. Useful for regional analysis — these are the geographies you'd typically include when studying labor markets, commuting zones, or environmental spillovers around FIPS 10003.

Federal Datasets Using Code 10003

FIPS code 10003 appears as the county identifier in the following federal datasets. Analysts joining data across these sources use this code as the common geographic key.

Using FIPS Code 10003 in Code

Common patterns for querying federal datasets by this county's FIPS code. The leading zeros are significant — always treat FIPS codes as strings, not integers.

Census ACS API — Python 10003
import requests

url = "https://api.census.gov/data/2022/acs/acs5"
params = {
    "get":  "NAME,B19013_001E,B01003_001E",
    "for":  "county:003",
    "in":   "state:10",
    "key":  "YOUR_CENSUS_API_KEY",
}
r = requests.get(url, params=params)
data = r.json()  # [[header...], [New Castle County, Delaware, income, pop, ...]
SQL — filtering by county FIPS 10003
-- 5-digit combined FIPS (state + county)
SELECT * FROM your_table WHERE county_fips = '10003';

-- Some datasets store state and county separately
SELECT * FROM your_table
WHERE state_fips = '10'
  AND county_fips = '003';

-- ⚠ Never cast to integer — leading zeros are lost:
-- county_fips = 10003 is WRONG for this county
R — tidycensus 10003
library(tidycensus)

get_acs(
  geography = "county",
  variables = c(income = "B19013_001E", pop = "B01003_001E"),
  state     = "10",
  county    = "003",
  year      = 2022
)
Zero-padding reminder: FIPS codes must always be stored and compared as zero-padded strings. 10 (not 10) and 003 (not 3) — losing the leading zeros is one of the most common data-join bugs in federal datasets. Full guide →

ZIP Codes in New Castle County

ZIP codes do not align perfectly with county boundaries — a single ZIP code can span multiple counties, and a county can contain parts of many ZIP codes. The ratios below (from the Census 2020 ZCTA relationship file) show the land area share of each ZCTA that falls within New Castle County. Why FIPS ≠ ZIP →

ZIP Code % in county
19701 100.0%
19702 100.0%
19703 100.0%
19706 100.0%
19707 100.0%
19709 100.0%
19710 100.0%
19711 100.0%
19713 100.0%
19716 100.0%
19717 100.0%
19720 100.0%
19730 100.0%
19731 100.0%
19732 100.0%
19733 100.0%
19734 100.0%
19735 100.0%
19736 100.0%
19801 100.0%
19802 100.0%
19803 100.0%
19804 100.0%
19805 100.0%
19806 100.0%
19807 100.0%
19808 100.0%
19809 100.0%
19810 100.0%
19977 22.4%

Showing top 30 of 32 ZIP codes by residential address share.

Other Counties in Delaware