Porter County
Indiana · County seat: Valparaiso · Active county or equivalent
FIPS code 18127 is Porter County, Indiana. With a population of 173,355 (2022 ACS estimate), it ranks #10 in Indiana and #381 nationally. Porter County is part of the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN. The state FIPS code for Indiana is 18. This code is used in Census Bureau, BLS, EPA, HUD, and USDA federal datasets to identify this county.
County FIPS
18127
Population
173,355
2022 ACS · #381 nationally
Density
414.6/mi²
people per sq mile
Land Area
418
sq miles
Urban/Rural
Metro — 1M+ population
RUCC 1
How This FIPS Code Works
The 5-digit FIPS code 18127 is formed by combining the 2-digit state identifier 18 (Indiana) with the 3-digit county identifier 127. Together they uniquely identify Porter County in every US federal dataset. No two counties share the same 5-digit FIPS code.
Census ACS Data for FIPS 18127
From the 2022 ACS 5-year estimates — the same values you'd retrieve by querying the Census API with county FIPS 18127.
Median Household Income
$82,915
ACS B19013_001E
Poverty Rate
9.3%
ACS B17001 (below poverty level)
Median Age
40.1
ACS B01002_001E
Metropolitan Area
Adjacent Counties (6)
Counties that share a border with Porter County. Useful for regional analysis — these are the geographies you'd typically include when studying labor markets, commuting zones, or environmental spillovers around FIPS 18127.
Federal Datasets Using Code 18127
FIPS code 18127 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 18127 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.
import requests
url = "https://api.census.gov/data/2022/acs/acs5"
params = {
"get": "NAME,B19013_001E,B01003_001E",
"for": "county:127",
"in": "state:18",
"key": "YOUR_CENSUS_API_KEY",
}
r = requests.get(url, params=params)
data = r.json() # [[header...], [Porter County, Indiana, income, pop, ...]-- 5-digit combined FIPS (state + county)
SELECT * FROM your_table WHERE county_fips = '18127';
-- Some datasets store state and county separately
SELECT * FROM your_table
WHERE state_fips = '18'
AND county_fips = '127';
-- ⚠ Never cast to integer — leading zeros are lost:
-- county_fips = 18127 is WRONG for this countylibrary(tidycensus)
get_acs(
geography = "county",
variables = c(income = "B19013_001E", pop = "B01003_001E"),
state = "18",
county = "127",
year = 2022
)ZIP Codes in Porter 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 Porter County. Why FIPS ≠ ZIP →
| ZIP Code | % in county |
|---|---|
| 46385 | 100.0% |
| 46302 | 100.0% |
| 46304 | 100.0% |
| 46393 | 100.0% |
| 46301 | 100.0% |
| 46368 | 100.0% |
| 46383 | 100.0% |
| 46347 | 100.0% |
| 46341 | 49.7% |
| 46391 | 33.1% |
| 46342 | 28.1% |
| 46360 | 15.8% |
| 46403 | 10.5% |
| 46307 | 2.7% |
| 46348 | 1.1% |
| 46390 | 0.7% |