{ "metrics": [ { "key": "marketDays", "label": "Days on market", "description": "Median days homes stay listed", "group": "Housing", "unit": "days", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Redfin Data Center Market Tracker", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The median number of days a home for sale remains on the market. It describes current market pace, not a prediction or a universal good: fewer days can mean a competitive market for buyers and more leverage for sellers; more days can give buyers more time and choice. Redfin Market Tracker, quarterly.", "missingWhere": "Redfin publishes county market rows for about 2,998 of 3,144 counties. Counties without a published row are left blank rather than filled from a state or metro." }, { "key": "marketInventory", "label": "Homes listed for sale", "description": "Homes actively listed for sale", "group": "Housing", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Redfin Data Center Market Tracker", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The number of homes Redfin reports as actively listed for sale. This is a count, so larger places naturally tend to have more listings; use the companion per-1,000-residents measure to compare availability across differently sized places. Redfin Market Tracker, quarterly.", "missingWhere": "Redfin publishes county market rows for about 2,998 of 3,144 counties. Counties without a published row are left blank rather than filled from a state or metro." }, { "key": "marketInventory1k", "label": "Listings per 1,000 residents", "description": "Active listings per 1,000 residents", "group": "Housing", "unit": "per1k", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Redfin Data Center Market Tracker; U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Active Redfin listings divided by the resident population, for comparing housing inventory across places of different sizes. It is not months of supply: it does not account for sales pace, household size, second homes, price tier, or homes listed just over the county line. Redfin Market Tracker quarterly inventory; Census population estimate.", "missingWhere": "Redfin publishes county market rows for about 2,998 of 3,144 counties. Counties without a published row are left blank rather than filled from a state or metro." }, { "key": "marketSaleToList", "label": "Sale-to-list price", "description": "Median sale price as a share of list price", "group": "Housing", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Redfin Data Center Market Tracker", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The median sale price divided by the last list price, expressed as a percent. Around 100% means typical homes close near asking; above or below 100% describes the observed sales in that period, not what any specific home will sell for. Redfin Market Tracker, quarterly.", "missingWhere": "Redfin publishes county market rows for about 2,998 of 3,144 counties. Counties without a published row are left blank rather than filled from a state or metro." }, { "key": "income", "label": "Household income", "description": "Median household income", "group": "Money", "unit": "usd", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Census ACS 1-year estimate.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "personalIncomePerCapita", "label": "Personal income per resident", "description": "Personal income per resident", "group": "Money", "unit": "usd", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional CAINC1", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "All personal income received by residents, divided by population. It includes earnings, investment income, and government transfer payments. Unlike median household income, this is an average across residents and can be raised by high incomes or retirement transfers; it is not a typical household’s income, wages, disposable income, or local GDP. BEA Regional CAINC1, annual.", "missingWhere": "BEA withholds some county figures for disclosure. A blank means BEA did not publish a usable estimate, not that residents have no income." }, { "key": "rentAcs", "label": "Rent paid by current tenants", "description": "Median gross rent", "group": "Housing", "unit": "usd", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Census ACS 5-year, table B25064: the median rent actually paid by people already living here, including utilities. Different from an asking-rent index, which tracks what new leases are listed at (not served by this API) — asking rent runs higher and moves sooner. This one covers every county, including Connecticut's planning regions, where the asking-rent index is still published for the counties abolished in 2022.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "rentBurden", "label": "Rent cost burden", "description": "Renters spending 30%+ of income on rent", "group": "Housing", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of renter households paying cash rent whose gross rent is 30% or more of household income. Gross rent includes utilities. This is a household budget-pressure measure, not a verdict on whether a place is affordable: it does not capture roommates, housing quality, household choice, subsidies, wealth, or people who have already been priced out. Census ACS 5-year table B25070.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "ownerBurden", "label": "Owner cost burden", "description": "Mortgage owners spending 30%+ of income on housing", "group": "Housing", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of owner-occupied households with a mortgage whose selected monthly owner costs are 30% or more of household income. It is intentionally limited to mortgage owners because ACS publishes their denominator separately; owners without a mortgage face a different cost structure. Census ACS 5-year table B25091.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "mortgageRate", "label": "Rate on existing mortgages", "description": "Average rate on outstanding mortgages", "group": "Housing", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FHFA National Mortgage Database", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average original contract interest rate among active, closed-end first-lien mortgages, weighted by the number of loans. It describes the mortgages borrowers already hold in each state—not today's advertised rate, a quote for a new loan, an adjustable-rate reset, or a county estimate. The supporting bands show the share of active mortgages in each original-rate range. FHFA National Mortgage Database (NMDB), quarterly.", "missingWhere": "State-level only. FHFA's nationally representative mortgage sample is tabulated by state; no county rate is inferred." }, { "key": "yearBuilt", "label": "Typical age", "description": "Median year homes here were built", "group": "Housing", "unit": "year", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The midpoint year for all housing in the county, from Census table B25035. It says what you would be buying into: wiring, insulation, materials and layout all track the era a house was built in. Read as a description of the whole stock rather than of what is for sale — a county that built heavily in 1965 and again last year shows a middling median that matches neither half.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "builtPre1980", "label": "Built before 1980", "description": "Share of homes built before 1980", "group": "Housing", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "1980 is the practical line for lead paint and asbestos-era materials, which is why this is the cut rather than a round number of decades. A high share is not a verdict — older housing is often better built and better located — but it changes what an inspection should look for and what renovation costs. From Census table B25034.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "mobileHome", "label": "Manufactured homes", "description": "Share of homes that are manufactured or mobile", "group": "Housing", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Manufactured and mobile homes, plus the small number of boats, RVs and vans the Census counts as housing, as a share of all units. Both behave the same way for financing: conventional mortgages are harder to obtain and appreciation follows different rules. A high share often explains a county median home price that looks impossibly low. From Census table B25024.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "vacancy", "label": "Vacancy rate", "description": "Share of homes that are vacant", "group": "Housing", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Every housing unit is counted as occupied or vacant, and this is the vacant share. It reads two opposite ways: economic decline, or a tourist economy where houses stand empty most of the year. The second-home share beside it separates the two — a dying town and a ski town both post high vacancy. From Census table B25002.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "renterShare", "label": "Renters", "description": "Share of occupied homes that are rented", "group": "Housing", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS Table B25003", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Of the homes people actually live in, the share occupied by renters rather than owners. Vacant homes are excluded, so this is not affected by the second-home share. It shapes a lot of local character: how much turnover there is, how much of the housing stock is maintained by landlords, and how exposed the place is to rent rather than to mortgage rates.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "homeownerShare", "label": "Homeownership", "description": "Share of occupied homes that are owner-occupied", "group": "Housing", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Derived from U.S. Census Bureau ACS Table B25003", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Of the homes people actually live in, the share occupied by owners. This is calculated exactly as 100% minus the ACS renter share, using the same occupied-housing denominator; it does not trigger another source request and cannot drift from the renter measure. Vacant and second homes are excluded. A higher rate describes tenure, not automatically affordability, housing quality, or access to ownership.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "seasonal", "label": "Second homes", "description": "Share of homes held for seasonal or occasional use", "group": "Housing", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Housing kept for seasonal, recreational or occasional use, as a share of all units rather than of vacant ones — a third of all homes being second homes describes a resort town, while a share of the vacant ones describes nothing. High figures mark places where locals compete with visitors for housing. Includes hunting cabins and inherited family places, not only resort condominiums. From Census table B25004.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "fmr2", "label": "HUD fair market rent · 2-bed", "description": "HUD fair market rent, 2-bed", "group": "Housing", "unit": "usd", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "What HUD judges a modest two-bedroom costs: the 40th percentile of standard-quality units, used to set housing voucher payments. Published for every county, which is why it appears where the Zillow index does not. It is not an asking-rent figure and is set for a whole Fair Market Rent area, so counties inside one metro share a number — read it as a floor for the local market rather than a listing price.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "fmr1", "label": "HUD fair market rent · 1-bed", "description": "HUD fair market rent, 1-bed", "group": "Housing", "unit": "usd", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "HUD", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The same HUD 40th-percentile standard as the two-bedroom figure, for a one-bedroom. Published for every county on current geography, Connecticut's planning regions included.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "fmr3", "label": "HUD fair market rent · 3-bed", "description": "HUD fair market rent, 3-bed", "group": "Housing", "unit": "usd", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "HUD", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The same HUD 40th-percentile standard for a three-bedroom — the size most families actually rent.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "minWageHours2br", "label": "Minimum-wage housing", "description": "Minimum-wage hours for 2BR rent", "group": "Housing", "unit": "hoursWeek", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Department of Labor; HUD Fair Market Rent", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Hours of work per week at the general state minimum wage needed to keep HUD’s two-bedroom Fair Market Rent at 30% of gross income. Lower means that this county’s HUD rent benchmark consumes fewer minimum-wage work hours. It is not a household budget: it excludes taxes, utilities, child care and every other expense. The wage is the U.S. Department of Labor’s listed state rate; local ordinances, employer-size rules, tipped work and occupation exemptions can differ, so this is a consistent state-law comparison rather than a promise of any worker’s pay.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "propTax", "label": "Property tax", "description": "Property tax rate", "group": "Taxes", "unit": "pct", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "Tax Foundation", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Effective rate — state: Tax Foundation 2026, county: Census ACS", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "taxBill", "label": "Property tax bill", "description": "Median annual property tax paid", "group": "Taxes", "unit": "usd", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Median annual real-estate taxes paid among owner-occupied homes. This is what current owners report paying, not an estimate for a home you might buy: a particular bill depends on the assessment, exemptions, tax district, and local rules. Census ACS 5-year table B25103 for counties; ACS 1-year table B25103 for states.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "minWage", "label": "Minimum wage", "description": "General state minimum wage reference rate", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "usdHour", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The general state minimum-wage reference rate used by MoverMath. Where the listed state floor is below the federal minimum, or the state has no minimum-wage law, the map shows the $7.25 federal floor that applies to covered workers. This is not the rate guaranteed to every worker: city and regional laws, employer size or receipts, industry and occupation rules, tipped and youth wages, and exemptions can change what applies. Checked monthly against the U.S. Department of Labor table.", "missingWhere": "State-level only. Local wage laws do not follow county boundaries consistently, so county profiles show the state reference rate and label it statewide rather than inventing a county rate." }, { "key": "paidFamilyLeave", "label": "Paid family/medical leave", "description": "State paid family and medical leave program", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "text", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau; state program agencies", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Whether the state has a mandatory statewide paid family and medical leave program for eligible workers. “Benefits available” means the state program is accepting claims; “Enacted — benefits not yet available” means the law exists but its public benefit program has not started. This does not measure employer-provided leave, eligibility, benefit amount, or paid sick leave. Reviewed quarterly and when the U.S. Department of Labor updates its state map. Maryland FAMLI is enacted, with benefits scheduled for January 2028.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "cannabisStatus", "label": "Cannabis status", "description": "State cannabis program status", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "text", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "National Conference of State Legislatures; state program agencies", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Statewide legal and program status, not a guarantee that cannabis can be bought in a particular place. “Adult use — retail operating” means state-regulated adult-use stores are open; “retail not operating” means adult use is legal but a statewide adult-use retail market is not operating. “Medical only — comprehensive program” follows NCSL’s criteria for meaningful patient access; limited low-THC/CBD laws are shown separately. Local retail rules may differ. Federal law and rules affecting employment, housing, banking, firearms and travel can still apply. Reviewed bimonthly against NCSL’s enacted-policy database; this is information, not legal advice.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "incTax", "label": "Income tax", "description": "Top state income tax", "group": "Taxes", "unit": "pct", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "Tax Foundation", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Top marginal rate, Tax Foundation 2026", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "capGainsTax", "label": "Capital gains", "description": "Capital gains tax", "group": "Taxes", "unit": "pct", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "Kiplinger / state tax agencies", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Top effective rate on long-term gains, 2026", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "salesTax", "label": "Sales tax", "description": "Combined sales tax", "group": "Taxes", "unit": "pct", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "Tax Foundation", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "State + avg local, Tax Foundation Jul 2026", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "weather", "label": "Temperature", "description": "Avg. annual temperature", "group": "Weather", "unit": "deg", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NOAA NCEI nClimGrid-Daily", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Annual average temperature in °F. NOAA nClimGrid provides county area averages across the contiguous U.S.; Alaska and Hawaii retain the statewide figure.", "missingWhere": "Alaska and Hawaii fall outside the contiguous grid and show the statewide figure." }, { "key": "dewPoint", "label": "Humidity", "description": "Average annual dew point", "group": "Weather", "unit": "deg", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "PRISM Climate Group", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average annual dew point temperature, the amount of water vapour in the air expressed as the temperature at which it would condense. Higher dew points feel muggier; unlike relative humidity, dew point remains comparable between cold and hot places. Sampled at the county population centroid from PRISM's 4 km annual grid, so it describes typical local air rather than a county-wide average.", "missingWhere": "PRISM currently publishes this grid for the contiguous U.S. only; Alaska and Hawaii are blank rather than assigned a statewide substitute." }, { "key": "surfaceWind10m", "label": "Surface wind", "description": "Average wind speed at 10 m", "group": "Weather", "unit": "wind", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NREL WIND Toolkit", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Modelled multiyear average wind speed 10 metres above ground, in metres per second. The NREL WIND Toolkit raster covers 2007–2014; county values are means of its pixels inside the county, and state values are population-weighted county means. This is a broad climate description, not gusts, a wind forecast, or a local turbine-siting assessment — terrain, trees and buildings can change wind substantially within a county.", "missingWhere": "NREL's comparable 10 m raster covers the contiguous U.S. only, so Alaska and Hawaii are left unavailable rather than substituted with a different product." }, { "key": "rain", "label": "Precipitation", "description": "Annual precipitation", "group": "Weather", "unit": "in", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NOAA NCEI nClimGrid-Daily", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Total annual precipitation in inches, including rain and the liquid equivalent of snow. This is not a rainfall-only measure.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "snow", "label": "Snowfall", "description": "Annual snowfall", "group": "Weather", "unit": "in", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "ACIS / NOAA climate stations", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Measured annual snowfall in inches. County values are averaged from reporting stations in the ACIS climate network; a statewide figure is used only where no qualifying county station is available.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "sunGhi", "label": "Solar", "description": "Average daily solar energy", "group": "Weather", "unit": "sun", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "NREL National Solar Radiation Database", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Global horizontal irradiance: the solar energy reaching a horizontal surface, in kilowatt-hours per square metre per day, averaged over years. It is a measurement rather than a description, and it is used here because sunny days are not published for every county while this is. It tracks cloud cover closely, so it answers how grey a place is — the Olympic Peninsula and Arizona sit at opposite ends. It also indicates what a rooftop solar array would produce. Modelled from satellite cloud observations at roughly four kilometres, then read at the county's population-weighted centre, so a large county with varied terrain is represented by where its people live rather than by its average.", "missingWhere": "Needs a county population-weighted centre." }, { "key": "daylight", "label": "Daylight", "description": "Daylight hours", "group": "Weather", "unit": "hours", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Computed from latitude using the standard sunrise/sunset formula", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Hours between sunrise and sunset at the county’s population-weighted center. December and June use the solstices; annual swing is the difference between them. This is solar daylight, independent of time zone and clock changes.", "missingWhere": "Needs a county population-weighted center." }, { "key": "sunsetJun", "label": "Solstice sunset", "description": "Sunset time on the solstices", "group": "Weather", "unit": "clock", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Computed from NOAA solar-position formula, DOT/BTS time zones, and IANA tzdata", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Modelled local clock time for sunset at the county’s population-weighted center on December 21 and June 21. It combines the solar position with the county’s legal time zone and current daylight-saving rule, so west-facing parts of a time zone tend to show later sunsets. It is a normal horizon calculation, not a forecast: mountains, buildings, terrain and the exact year’s solstice can change when the sun is actually visible. State figures are population-weighted county clock times; states spanning time zones are therefore a useful broad summary, not a single statewide sunset.", "missingWhere": "A normal sunset is unavailable during polar day or polar night." }, { "key": "hotDays", "label": "Hot days", "description": "Days reaching 90°F", "group": "Weather", "unit": "days", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NOAA NCEI nClimGrid-Daily", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Number of days in the latest complete year when the county-average daily high reached at least 90°F. This describes heat frequency, not heat-health risk.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "heatWaveDays", "label": "Heat-wave days", "description": "Days in 3+ day 90°F heat waves", "group": "Weather", "unit": "days", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NOAA NCEI nClimGrid-Daily; NOAA RCC-ACIS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Days in the latest complete year that fell within a run of at least three consecutive county-average daily highs of 90°F or more. A five-day run counts as five days. This is a transparent hot-spell frequency measure, not a heat-health risk score, forecast, record-temperature count, overnight-heat, humidity, shade, air-conditioning, power reliability, or a measure of conditions at a particular address. County values use NOAA’s daily grid; the small set outside that grid use local NOAA climate-station observations. State figures are population-weighted county values.", "missingWhere": "Four county-equivalents had no qualifying NOAA daily record in 2025 and are left unavailable rather than estimated." }, { "key": "severeStormDays", "label": "Severe-storm days", "description": "Reported severe-storm days / yr", "group": "Weather", "unit": "days", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Twenty-year annual average of county days with a reported NOAA severe-storm event. The 2006–2025 calculation includes county-coded Thunderstorm Wind, Hail, or Tornado records; a county-day is counted once even when the storm produces several reports. This is a history of reported significant convective weather, not a count of every thunderstorm, warning, lightning strike, or future risk.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "comfortPct", "label": "Comfort days", "description": "Days averaging 65–75°F", "group": "Weather", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NOAA NCEI nClimGrid-Daily; NOAA RCC-ACIS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of days in the latest complete year when the county-average daily mean temperature was 65–75°F. This describes a mild all-day temperature band, not humidity, sun, wind, air quality, overnight temperature, or a guarantee of comfortable conditions. County values use NOAA’s daily grid; the small set outside that grid use local NOAA climate-station observations.", "missingWhere": "Four county-equivalents had no qualifying NOAA daily record in 2025 and are left unavailable rather than estimated." }, { "key": "nightLights", "label": "Night lights", "description": "Night-time lights", "group": "Weather", "unit": "night", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NASA Black Marble / VIIRS", "visualOnly": true, "caveat": "NASA Black Marble night-time light imagery. This is a cloud-free satellite composite with moonlight, airglow and auroras removed, so the lit pattern primarily reflects where people, roads and industry are. It is a visual layer, not a brightness ranking: open a state to see its counties and the imagery underneath.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "lightRadiance", "label": "Light pollution", "description": "Annual upward radiance", "group": "Weather", "unit": "radiance", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NASA Black Marble VNP46A4 / VIIRS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Annual mean upward radiance within county boundaries, in nanowatts per square centimetre per steradian. VIIRS measures artificial light emitted upward to the satellite; lower values generally mean less upward light. It does not measure skyglow overhead, a Bortle class, or how dark a particular yard appears — clouds, terrain and nearby sources can differ. NASA Black Marble annual composite, 2025.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "elecBill", "label": "Electric bill", "description": "Average monthly electric bill", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "usd", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Energy Information Administration", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The monthly residential bill. The state figure is EIA’s own state series; the county figure is residential revenue divided by customers for each utility serving the county, then the median across them. Reflects both the local rate and how much electricity households actually use, so a cheap rate in a hot state can still produce a high bill.", "missingWhere": "Counties served only by delivery-only utilities keep the state figure, as does Connecticut." }, { "key": "elecBillWinter", "label": "Winter electric bill", "description": "Typical winter electric bill", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "usdMonth", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861M", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average monthly residential electric bill across December through February in the latest 24 months of EIA state data. EIA publishes monthly residential sales, revenue and customer accounts by state, so this is a statewide typical-account estimate, not a utility quote or a county-specific bill. It includes the seasonal effect of both electricity use and price.", "missingWhere": "State-level only. EIA does not publish monthly residential customer accounts and revenue by county, so county profiles show this as statewide context rather than claiming county variation." }, { "key": "elecBillSummer", "label": "Summer electric bill", "description": "Typical summer electric bill", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "usdMonth", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861M", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average monthly residential electric bill across June through August in the latest 24 months of EIA state data. EIA publishes monthly residential sales, revenue and customer accounts by state, so this is a statewide typical-account estimate, not a utility quote or a county-specific bill. It includes the seasonal effect of both electricity use and price.", "missingWhere": "State-level only. EIA does not publish monthly residential customer accounts and revenue by county, so county profiles show this as statewide context rather than claiming county variation." }, { "key": "elecUtilities", "label": "Utilities serving", "description": "Electric utilities serving this county", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "EIA Form 861", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "How many bundled-service utilities report distribution equipment in this county. This is the context for the other electricity figures: one utility means they describe what households actually pay, while six means they are a median across six different prices. Rural counties are often served by a single cooperative; metropolitan counties by several.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "elecPrice", "label": "Electricity rate", "description": "Electricity price per kWh", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "cents", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Energy Information Administration", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "What a kilowatt-hour costs. The state figure is EIA’s own state series. The county figure is derived: EIA publishes prices by utility and separately lists the counties each utility has distribution equipment in, so this is the median rate among the utilities serving that county — see how many that is under Utilities serving. Customer counts are reported per utility per state, not per county, so a customer-weighted average is not computable and is not attempted. Bundled service only: in a retail-choice state a delivery-only utility bills for part of the supply, and including it would print a rate no household pays. Because the two levels are derived differently, a county can sit above or below its state figure for reasons other than local prices.", "missingWhere": "Counties served only by delivery-only utilities keep the state figure, as does Connecticut, whose planning regions do not match the county names EIA reports." }, { "key": "elecUsage", "label": "Electricity use", "description": "Household electricity use", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "kwh", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Energy Information Administration", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "How much electricity a household uses in a month. The state figure is EIA’s own state series; the county figure is residential sales divided by customers per serving utility, then the median. Driven mostly by climate and by whether homes heat with electricity — the highest figures are in the hot, humid south and in cold states without gas service.", "missingWhere": "Counties served only by delivery-only utilities keep the state figure, as does Connecticut." }, { "key": "solarKwh1kw", "label": "Rooftop solar output", "description": "Rooftop solar output, 1 kW system", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "kwhYear", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NREL PVWatts", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Estimated annual electricity from a 1 kW fixed roof-mounted photovoltaic system at the county’s population-weighted center. This is solar resource potential, not a roof quote: it does not account for roof orientation, shading, panel choice, system losses, local incentives, or your electricity use.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "solarPaybackYears", "label": "Solar payback", "description": "Standard rooftop solar payback", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "num1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "NREL PVWatts; NREL Annual Technology Baseline; EIA Form 861", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Simple payback for a standard 1 kW rooftop system: NREL PVWatts annual output multiplied by the local residential electricity rate, against NREL’s $2.68/W residential benchmark (2023 dollars). It assumes every generated kWh offsets retail electricity, with no incentives, financing, taxes, maintenance, degradation, net-metering limits, battery, roof work, shading or local installation-price differences. Treat this as a consistent resource-and-rate comparison, not a quote or investment return.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "gasPrice", "label": "Natural gas", "description": "Residential natural gas price", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "usdMcf", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Energy Information Administration", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Dollars per thousand cubic feet, averaged over 24 months. Read this alongside how much gas a state actually burns: Florida looks three times dearer than Montana per unit, but that is because almost no Florida home heats with gas, so fixed monthly charges are spread over almost nothing. Where gas is the main heating fuel, the per-unit price falls in winter as volume rises.", "missingWhere": "State-level only. EIA reports gas prices by state, not county." }, { "key": "heatElectric", "label": "Electric heat", "description": "Homes heated by electricity", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Census ACS 5-year, table B25040", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of occupied homes heating with electricity. This is the figure that explains the others: states where most homes heat electrically are exactly the ones with the highest kilowatt-hour use, which is why a cheap rate does not always mean a cheap bill.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "heatGas", "label": "Gas heat", "description": "Homes heated by utility gas", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Census ACS 5-year, table B25040", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of occupied homes heating with piped utility gas. Where this is low, the state's gas price barely matters — Florida's price per unit looks steep, but only about one home in twenty burns any.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "heatPropane", "label": "Propane heat", "description": "Homes heated by propane", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Census ACS 5-year, table B25040", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share heating with bottled, tank or LP gas. Propane is delivered by truck at market prices rather than billed by a regulated utility, so it is both more volatile and easier to overlook when budgeting. Common wherever the gas main does not reach.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "heatOil", "label": "Fuel oil heat", "description": "Homes heated by fuel oil", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Census ACS 5-year, table B25040", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share heating with fuel oil or kerosene, concentrated heavily in New England — more than half of Maine’s homes. Like propane it is bought by the tankful at market prices, so a cold winter lands as a large one-off bill rather than a spread-out utility charge.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "heatWood", "label": "Wood heat", "description": "Homes heated by wood", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Census ACS 5-year, table B25040", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share heating primarily with wood. Rarely the whole story — many rural homes supplement with a stove — but a useful signal of how rural and how self-supplied a county’s heating is.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "retireTax", "label": "Retirement income", "description": "Tax on retirement income", "group": "Taxes", "unit": "retireTax", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "State revenue departments via Tax Foundation, mid-2026", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "How a state treats pensions, 401(k) and IRA withdrawals. Nine states levy no income tax at all; four more tax wages but exempt retirement income, which is why Illinois can charge 4.95% on a salary and nothing on the same amount drawn from a 401(k). Everywhere else it is taxed as ordinary income, often with age or income-based exclusions this single figure cannot capture.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "ssTax", "label": "Social Security tax", "description": "State tax on Social Security", "group": "Taxes", "unit": "ssTax", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "State revenue departments via Tax Foundation, mid-2026", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Whether the state taxes Social Security benefits. Forty-two states and DC do not. The nine that do almost all exempt lower-income retirees, so “taxed” rarely means taxed in full — and the list shrinks most years as states phase the tax out. Verify against your state revenue department before acting on it.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "minTempF", "label": "Garden zone", "description": "Plant hardiness zone", "group": "Gardening", "unit": "zone", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NOAA RCC-ACIS, USDA band definitions", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average coldest winter temperature over the past 15 years, expressed as a plant hardiness zone. This is the standard measure of what will survive a winter outdoors. Computed from station observations using the USDA band definitions rather than taken from the USDA map, whose data is not published for reuse — it should agree in most places, but a county spanning a mountain range varies inside itself more than one number can show.", "missingWhere": "Needs a weather station with a full winter record over the period." }, { "key": "growingDays", "label": "Growing season", "description": "Frost-free days", "group": "Gardening", "unit": "days", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "NOAA RCC-ACIS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average number of days between the last spring frost and the first fall frost, over 2004-2024. This is the window most annual vegetables have to grow. Averaged across the weather stations in each county, so a county with real elevation change varies inside itself.", "missingWhere": "Needs both frost dates, so it is absent wherever either is." }, { "key": "lastFrostDoy", "label": "Last spring frost", "description": "Average last spring frost", "group": "Gardening", "unit": "doy", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NOAA RCC-ACIS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The average date of the last freeze in spring. Planting tender crops before this is a gamble; it is the date most seed packets are counting back from.", "missingWhere": "Needs a station reporting daily minimum temperatures through spring." }, { "key": "firstFrostDoy", "label": "First fall frost", "description": "Average first fall frost", "group": "Gardening", "unit": "doy", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NOAA RCC-ACIS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The average date of the first freeze in autumn, which sets when the growing season ends.", "missingWhere": "Needs a station reporting daily minimum temperatures through autumn." }, { "key": "freezeDays", "label": "Freezing days", "description": "Days at or below freezing", "group": "Weather", "unit": "days", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NOAA NCEI nClimGrid-Daily", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Number of days in the latest complete year when the county-average daily low reached 32°F or below. This describes cold frequency, not winter-storm risk.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "fallColor", "label": "Fall color", "description": "Typical fall color timing", "group": "Seasonal", "unit": "doy", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "USA National Phenology Network / MODIS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The typical calendar date when satellite-observed greenness has passed halfway from its seasonal peak toward senescence — a national indicator of the timing of autumn leaf-color change, not a prediction of this year's peak or a rating of colour intensity. Sampled at the county population centroid from the USA National Phenology Network's 2001–2017 MODIS climatology.", "missingWhere": "Available for the contiguous U.S. only. Deserts, open water and other pixels without seasonal vegetation are blank." }, { "key": "christmasTreesCut", "label": "Christmas trees cut", "description": "Christmas trees cut", "group": "Seasonal", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "USDA NASS Census of Agriculture 2022", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Trees cut for the market in the 2022 Census of Agriculture. This is agricultural production, not the number of homes that put up a tree or the location of retail lots. Census suppression is left blank rather than treated as zero.", "missingWhere": "USDA did not publish a county figure, usually because it was suppressed to protect respondents." }, { "key": "christmasTreeFarms", "label": "Christmas tree farms", "description": "Farms with Christmas tree production", "group": "Seasonal", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "USDA NASS Census of Agriculture 2022", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Farms reporting Christmas tree production in the 2022 Census of Agriculture. This is a count of operations, separate from trees cut or acres in production.", "missingWhere": "USDA did not publish a county figure, usually because it was suppressed to protect respondents." }, { "key": "christmasTreeAcres", "label": "Christmas tree acres", "description": "Christmas trees in production", "group": "Seasonal", "unit": "acres", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "USDA NASS Census of Agriculture 2022", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Acres of Christmas trees in production in the 2022 Census of Agriculture. Acreage and tree cuts describe different stages of a long crop cycle, so neither substitutes for the other.", "missingWhere": "USDA did not publish a county figure, usually because it was suppressed to protect respondents." }, { "key": "pumpkinAcres", "label": "Pumpkin acres", "description": "Pumpkin acres harvested", "group": "Seasonal", "unit": "acres", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "USDA NASS Census of Agriculture 2022", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Acres of pumpkins harvested in the 2022 Census of Agriculture. This measures production footprint; it does not distinguish processing pumpkins from pick-your-own farms.", "missingWhere": "USDA did not publish a county figure, usually because it was suppressed to protect respondents." }, { "key": "pumpkinFarms", "label": "Pumpkin farms", "description": "Farms harvesting pumpkins", "group": "Seasonal", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "USDA NASS Census of Agriculture 2022", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Farms reporting pumpkin harvest in the 2022 Census of Agriculture. It complements acreage: many small operations can look unlike one large industrial producer.", "missingWhere": "USDA did not publish a county figure, usually because it was suppressed to protect respondents." }, { "key": "trickTreatDensity", "label": "Trick-or-treater density", "description": "Children age 5–14 per 10,000 homes", "group": "Seasonal", "unit": "per1k", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-year", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Children age 5–14 per 10,000 housing units, from Census ACS 5-year estimates. It is a Halloween proxy for the number of likely trick-or-treaters relative to doors, not a count of participants or a safety measure.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "retailQ4Change", "label": "Q4 retail employment change", "description": "Fourth-quarter retail employment change", "group": "Seasonal", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Change in average retail employment from the third to the fourth quarter, using QCEW NAICS 44–45. It captures a seasonal staffing change, but does not attribute that change to holidays or say whether retail work is good or bad.", "missingWhere": "BLS did not publish a county retail estimate, generally because the cell was suppressed." }, { "key": "pop", "label": "Population", "description": "Population", "group": "Place", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Census ACS 1-year estimate.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "popPeakYear", "label": "Population peak", "description": "Peak population decade", "group": "Place", "unit": "year", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau decennial censuses", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The decennial census year in which this county or state reached its highest recorded population, from the Census Bureau's 1790–2020 series. Historical county boundaries and names changed over time, so this is the historical county entity rather than a back-cast estimate for today's exact boundary. A missing value means the Census series cannot be joined honestly to the current geography.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "streamNameStyle", "label": "Stream names", "description": "Dominant stream naming convention", "group": "Place", "unit": "text", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The most common ending among official GNIS names classified as Stream in this county: Creek, Bayou, Arroyo, Run, Hollow, Brook, Branch, River, Wash or Ditch. At least three recognized names must be present and one ending must comprise half; otherwise no label is shown. This maps naming convention, not stream length, water availability, or local usage.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "radonZone", "label": "Radon potential", "description": "EPA radon potential zone", "group": "Place", "unit": "radon", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Map of Radon Zones", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "EPA county screening guidance, not a measurement for any individual home. Zone 1 is the highest potential and average indoor levels may exceed 4 pCi/L; Zone 2 is moderate, roughly 2–4 pCi/L; Zone 3 is lower, below 2 pCi/L. State profiles show the most-populous official county zone; the U.S. view shows the population-weighted share of residents in the selected zone. County shading identifies counties in that zone. EPA says all homes should be tested, regardless of zone.", "missingWhere": "EPA has not assigned a directly comparable zone to this current county-equivalent geography." }, { "key": "ticksEstablished", "label": "Established tick records", "description": "CDC counties with established tick populations", "group": "Health", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "CDC Tick Surveillance", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "CDC's cumulative county surveillance classification for selected tick species. Select a species: the U.S. map shows the population-weighted share living in counties classified as established, while county maps highlight those counties. “Established” means CDC has records of six or more ticks of one life stage, or more than one life stage, in a 12-month period. A county not highlighted is not classified as established; it does not mean ticks are absent. This is not a map of tick abundance, bite likelihood, disease prevalence, or personal risk. CDC advises preventing tick bites wherever you spend time outdoors.", "missingWhere": "CDC's current county classification table covers the contiguous U.S. and DC. Alaska and Hawaii are unavailable, not treated as no tick records." }, { "key": "timeZone", "label": "Time zone", "description": "Standard time zone", "group": "Geography", "unit": "text", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "U.S. DOT / BTS National Transportation Atlas Database, Time Zones", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The standard time zone set by the U.S. Department of Transportation under 49 CFR part 71. The national map is drawn county by county so the legal boundary itself is visible. Daylight-saving exceptions are hatched over their zone color; ten county-equivalents intersect a boundary and remain separately marked Split county rather than being assigned to one side. This is a legal clock boundary, not a claim about where a state feels culturally aligned.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "countyEquivalents", "label": "County equivalents", "description": "County equivalents", "group": "Geography", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau, county-equivalent geography", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Census county-equivalent geographic units in each state: counties, parishes, boroughs, census areas, municipalities, and independent cities where applicable. This describes the state’s Census geography, not a count of local governments or a measure of size, population, or services.", "missingWhere": "Statewide only. County equivalents are the geographic units being counted, so assigning this state total to an individual county would be misleading." }, { "key": "flyway", "label": "Migratory flyway", "description": "Waterfowl migration flyway", "group": "Wildlife", "unit": "text", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "US Fish and Wildlife Service", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Which of the four North American waterfowl flyways a county sits in. These are the broad corridors migrating ducks, geese and shorebirds follow between their breeding grounds in the north and their wintering grounds in the south, and they are the units federal hunting regulations are set by. The boundaries overlap in reality and on the map: 237 counties fall inside two flyways, and each is assigned to one here. Birds do not read the lines either. The state map colours each state by the flyway covering most of its counties; forty of the fifty are at least ninety per cent one flyway, and the ten that are not are split along their own eastern or western edge. US Fish and Wildlife Service, Migratory Bird Program.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "hatcheries", "label": "Fish hatcheries", "description": "National fish hatcheries", "group": "Wildlife", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "US Fish and Wildlife Service", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "National fish hatcheries operated by the Fish and Wildlife Service, counted where they stand. These raise fish to stock public waters and to recover endangered species, and most have a visitor centre. There are 75 in the country, so all but 65 counties read zero — that is the normal case for a federal facility of this kind rather than a gap in the data. Administrative complexes are excluded where they sit alongside the hatcheries they oversee, since counting both would put five in a county with four. Fish health centres and technology centres are excluded too: they are laboratories rather than places to visit. USFWS National Fish Hatchery System.", "missingWhere": "Only 65 counties in the country have one." }, { "key": "refuges", "label": "Wildlife refuges", "description": "National wildlife refuges", "group": "Wildlife", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "US Fish and Wildlife Service", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "National wildlife refuges, plus the wildlife management areas and national monuments the Fish and Wildlife Service administers. Counted where their boundary falls, so a refuge spanning several counties is counted in each. Excluded are the waterfowl production areas and farm service tracts in the same source: they are parcels the agency holds rather than places a person visits, and counting them would put forty easements in a county with no refuge. A count rather than a rate, and a county reading zero has none within its own lines. USFWS realty boundaries.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "zoos", "label": "Accredited zoos", "description": "AZA-accredited zoos and animal parks", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "Association of Zoos and Aquariums", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) accredited zoos, zoological parks, safari parks, aviaries and animal-exhibit facilities, counted where they stand. Standalone aquariums and AZA's non-public related facilities are excluded: this is a zoo-trip measure, not a broad count of animal exhibitors. The list is curated from AZA's accredited-members directory and reviewed when accreditation changes; county placement uses published venue coordinates, with twenty documented county-FIPS placements where a public venue page supplies no machine-readable coordinate.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "aquariums", "label": "Accredited aquariums", "description": "AZA-accredited public aquariums", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "Association of Zoos and Aquariums", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Public Association of Zoos and Aquariums accredited aquarium destinations, including zoo-and-aquarium facilities. Marine laboratories, shell museums without a public aquarium operation and non-public related facilities are excluded. Counted where they stand.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "listedSpecies", "label": "Listed species", "description": "Federally listed species in current range", "group": "Wildlife", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ECOS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Distinct federally listed threatened or endangered species whose US Fish and Wildlife Service current range includes the county. This is a range-context measure, not a survey or estimate of animals living there; a county can appear because it contains a small piece of habitat. Fish and plants are included where FWS manages them; species under NOAA Fisheries jurisdiction are not.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "protectedLand", "label": "Protected land", "description": "Share of the county in protected land", "group": "Geography", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "USGS Protected Areas Database of the United States", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Public and conserved land as a share of the county's whole area. Counts land carrying a conservation or recreation mandate — national forests, parks, wildlife refuges, state land, local preserves — and excludes military holdings and tribal areas, which are neither. Neutral rather than good: it is open country to walk in, and it is also land that cannot be bought or built on, which is why a high figure often sits beside a tight housing market. The denominator is the county's full extent including water, from the same source, so a lake-heavy county is not flattered. Local and city parks are recorded unevenly by state, so the measure is most reliable where federal and state land dominates. PAD-US 4.1, land as of 31 December 2023.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "nationalParkForestMi", "label": "Nearest park / forest", "description": "Miles to the nearest National Park or National Forest", "group": "Geography", "unit": "mi", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "USGS Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) 4.1", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Straight-line miles from the county’s population-weighted center to the nearest mapped boundary of a National Park or National Forest. A zero means that center falls inside one of those federal-land polygons. This is not driving distance, a route to an entrance, or a public-access guarantee: mountains, water, seasonal closures, permits and private inholdings can make an actual visit much longer or impossible. It includes only National Park Service areas classified as National Park and Forest Service areas classified as National Forest — not every NPS site, national monument, national recreation area, state park or other protected land. State figures are population-weighted county distances.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "thirdPlaces100k", "label": "Third places", "description": "Third places per 100,000 residents", "group": "Place", "unit": "places100k", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "IMLS Public Libraries Survey FY2023; OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Mapped public libraries, parks, and community centres per 100,000 residents. The resident view makes places comparable across populations; the land-area view shows how closely they are mapped. This is a count of mapped locations, not a quality, access, safety, opening-hours, size, programming, or affordability rating. OSM coverage is volunteer-maintained and uneven, and parks can be very different sizes; it is therefore best read as a useful local amenity signal rather than a complete inventory. State figures sum the locations and divide by the state’s population or land area.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "walkability", "label": "Walkability index", "description": "Walkability context index", "group": "Place", "unit": "score", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. EPA Smart Location Database v3.0", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "MoverMath’s transparent 0–100 relative index, not Walk Score or EPA’s own National Walkability Index. It gives 55% weight to EPA pedestrian-oriented intersection density, 30% to activity density, and 15% to employment land-use mix; each component is ranked across counties before combining. It describes broad built-environment context, not sidewalk condition, crossings, hills, crime, accessibility, transit reliability, air quality, a walking route, or what is reachable from a particular home. The underlying EPA block-group data are from 2021 and state figures are population-weighted county values.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "coffeeSnack100k", "label": "Coffee & snack shops", "description": "Coffee & snack shops per 100,000 residents", "group": "Place", "unit": "places100k", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Employer coffee and snack-bar establishments per 100,000 residents, from Census industry NAICS 722515. It includes coffee shops, but also nonalcoholic beverage, ice-cream, bagel, doughnut, and specialty-snack establishments, so it is not a coffee-only or independent-shop count. It excludes businesses without paid employees and does not measure quality, seating, prices, hours, or proximity. State figures sum county establishments and divide by state population.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "bookstores100k", "label": "Bookstores", "description": "Bookstores per 100,000 residents", "group": "Place", "unit": "places100k", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Employer book-store establishments per 100,000 residents, from Census industry NAICS 451211. This includes chains and independent stores; the Census does not identify ownership, so it is not presented as an independent-bookstore count. It excludes sellers without paid employees and does not measure selection, events, used books, prices, or proximity. State figures sum county establishments and divide by state population.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "petServices100k", "label": "Pet services", "description": "Pet-service employers per 100,000 residents", "group": "Place", "unit": "places100k", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Employer veterinary and non-veterinary pet-care establishments per 100,000 residents, combining Census industries NAICS 541940 and 812910. This is a local pet-service signal — vets, grooming, boarding, day care and similar businesses — not a rating of pet-friendliness. It does not measure dog parks, rental policies, leash laws, veterinary quality, prices, availability, or businesses without paid employees. State figures sum county establishments and divide by state population.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "eventVenues100k", "label": "Event venues", "description": "Event-venue employers per 100,000 residents", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "places100k", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Employer establishments in Census industry NAICS 711310 — promoters of performing arts, sports and similar events with facilities — per 100,000 residents. It covers operators and promoters of arenas, stadiums, theatres, fairs, concerts and festivals where they manage the facility. It is therefore a broad event-venue measure, not a count of music-only venues, individual stages, scheduled events, ticket availability, capacity, quality, or access. It excludes businesses without paid employees. State figures sum county establishments and divide by state population.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "oceanGreatLakeMi", "label": "Nearest ocean / Great Lake", "description": "Miles to the nearest ocean or Great Lake", "group": "Geography", "unit": "mi", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "USGS National Hydrography Dataset (NHD; coastline supplied by NOAA)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Straight-line miles from the county’s population-weighted center to the nearest mapped ocean or Great Lake shoreline. A zero means that center falls inside the source’s water polygon. This is not driving distance, public-beach access, water quality, or distance to an ordinary lake or river; road access, private shoreline and terrain can make an actual trip longer. The five Great Lakes are Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario. State figures are population-weighted county distances.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "treeCanopy", "label": "Tree canopy", "description": "Average tree canopy cover", "group": "Geography", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "USDA Forest Service NLCD Tree Canopy Cover (2025 CONUS; 2023 Hawaii)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average percent tree-canopy cover across the county's mapped land pixels. The USDA Forest Service NLCD product masks water and non-tree agriculture, then smooths the annual satellite series; it describes broad tree cover, not street-tree access, park acreage, shade on a particular block, or forest ownership. County values are means of the published 30-m pixels inside Census county boundaries, and state values are population-weighted county means. Current source: 2025 in the contiguous U.S.; 2023 in Hawaii, where the next release has not yet been published.", "missingWhere": "The current complete product covers the contiguous U.S. and Hawaii. Alaska's available layer covers only the southeast, so Alaska is intentionally left blank rather than shown as a misleading statewide figure." }, { "key": "waterShare", "label": "Water area", "description": "Share of the county that is water", "group": "Geography", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau, TIGERweb", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Lakes, rivers, reservoirs and the coastal water inside the county boundary, as a share of the county's whole area. Neutral rather than good: water is why people move to some counties and why others flood. Read it with care on the coast, where a county line reaches miles out to sea and produces a high figure with no lake in it — Michigan and Minnesota counties score high for water you can actually reach, while a barrier island county scores high for ocean. Census TIGERweb, the same boundaries the land area comes from.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "landArea", "label": "Land area", "description": "Land area in square miles", "group": "Geography", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Land area from the Census Bureau's own boundary files, excluding water. A county that is half lake would otherwise read as far emptier than it is — which matters in Michigan, Minnesota and much of Alaska. Worth reading beside population rather than alone: San Bernardino County is larger than nine states, and Arlington County fits inside a small city.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "riverMilesSqMi", "label": "Rivers", "description": "River miles per square mile", "group": "Geography", "unit": "num2", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Geological Survey National Hydrography Dataset", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Miles of USGS NHD perennial Stream/River flowlines (FCode 46006), clipped to the county boundary, divided by land area. This counts mapped perennial channels, not seasonal creeks, water volume, or navigability. Map lines are a simplified selection of named rivers for legibility; the shading includes every qualifying NHD flowline.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "namedLakes100SqMi", "label": "Named lakes", "description": "Named lakes and ponds per 100 square miles", "group": "Geography", "unit": "num2", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Geological Survey National Hydrography Dataset", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Named USGS NHD Lake/Pond features at least 40 acres, excluding Reservoir features, per 100 square miles of land. A lake that crosses a county boundary is assigned once by its representative point, rather than double-counted. The map shows these qualifying waterbodies; county details identify the nearest and largest where present.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "trailMilesSqMi", "label": "Mapped land trails", "description": "Mapped land-trail miles per square mile", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "num2", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Geological Survey National Digital Trails", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Miles of USGS National Digital Trails segments classified as Terra Trail, clipped to the Census county or place boundary and divided by land area. Water trails and segments whose source explicitly prohibits pedestrian use are excluded. Many contributing agencies leave pedestrian access blank, so this is an inventory of mapped land trails rather than a promise that every mile is walkable or publicly accessible. A blank means USGS supplied no trail coverage for that state; zero means no qualifying mapped segment intersects the boundary.", "missingWhere": "USGS has not supplied trail coverage for this state." }, { "key": "elevationFt", "label": "Elevation", "description": "Elevation at county population center", "group": "Geography", "unit": "ft", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Elevation in feet at the county’s population-weighted center, not a county mean. USGS returns the national elevation model in meters; values shown here are converted to feet for a U.S. relocation audience. A large or mountainous county can vary greatly away from where most residents live.", "missingWhere": "The county population center falls outside usable USGS elevation coverage." }, { "key": "volcanoMi", "label": "Nearest volcano", "description": "Miles to nearest potentially active volcano", "group": "Geography", "unit": "mi", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Geological Survey Volcano Hazards Program", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Straight-line miles from the county’s population-weighted center to the nearest of the 161 potentially active U.S. volcanoes in the USGS Volcano Hazards Program inventory. The map marks the inventory locations. “Potentially active” is the USGS inventory category, not a prediction of eruption or a hazard-zone boundary; actual exposure depends on volcano type, terrain, prevailing winds and emergency planning.", "missingWhere": "Needs a county population center." }, { "key": "earthquakesM4", "label": "Recorded earthquakes", "description": "Recorded earthquakes, M4.0+ since 2000", "group": "Geography", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Catalog", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Earthquakes of magnitude 4.0 or greater whose recorded epicenter falls inside the county, from 1 January 2000 through 31 December 2025. This is a historical count, not a forecast or a measure of damage risk; an event near a county line counts where its estimated epicenter falls.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "tornadoTracks", "label": "Tornado tracks", "description": "Recorded tornado tracks", "group": "Risk", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado archive", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Tornadoes recorded by NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center. Choose any years in the archive. A county count includes each path SPC identifies as affecting that county; the overlay connects SPC’s published start and end coordinates, not a damage-width map. Earlier records can have less precise paths. This is recorded history, not a forecast or a measure of future tornado risk.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "earthquakeMaxMag", "label": "Largest recorded earthquake", "description": "Largest recorded earthquake magnitude since 2000", "group": "Geography", "unit": "num1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Catalog", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The largest magnitude among the recorded M4.0+ earthquakes whose estimated epicenter falls inside the county, from 2000 through 2025. Magnitude is logarithmic; this is a historical companion to the count, not a prediction of the next event.", "missingWhere": "No M4.0+ earthquake epicenter was recorded here in 2000–2025." }, { "key": "density", "label": "Population density", "description": "People per square mile of land", "group": "Place", "unit": "num1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Population divided by land area. The single clearest measure of how a place feels day to day — more so than population, which tells you how many people share a boundary without saying how far apart they are. Ranges across four orders of magnitude, from under one person per square mile across the Alaskan interior and the Great Plains to tens of thousands in the dense boroughs.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "cropLead", "label": "What grows here", "description": "Leading crop, excluding forage", "group": "Food", "unit": "text", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "USDA NASS Census of Agriculture", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The crop with the most harvested acres, leaving out hay and haylage. Forage leads 53.5% of US counties outright because it is grown almost everywhere as livestock feed, and a map coloured by that is a single colour over half the country — true, and useless. Leaving it out shows what a county grows beyond feed for its own animals: the corn belt, the wheat plains, the cotton south. The outright leader with hay included is on every county and state profile, so nothing is hidden. Corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton account for 85% of counties; the remaining tail is real but each crop under about one per cent, so ten are coloured and the rest share one. Counties that grow only forage have no value here. USDA Census of Agriculture 2022.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "cropTopShare", "label": "Leading crop share", "description": "Share of harvested acres in the leading crop", "group": "Food", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "USDA NASS Census of Agriculture", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "How concentrated a county's farmland is in whichever crop is biggest there. A county at 80 per cent grows essentially one thing; a county at 25 per cent grows a mix. Neither is better — concentration follows soil and climate as much as choice, and a monoculture county can be prosperous while a diverse one struggles. Read it beside the crops themselves rather than alone. Hay leads in about half of all counties because it is grown almost everywhere as livestock forage, which is why the top three are shown rather than just the first. Acres harvested, so nothing here is divided by population and the small-county caution that applies to most measures does not apply here: a county of four hundred people with ninety thousand acres of wheat is a wheat county, not a small sample. USDA Census of Agriculture 2022, taken every five years.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "groceryStores", "label": "Grocery stores", "description": "Supermarkets and grocery stores", "group": "Food", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Census County Business Patterns", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Supermarkets and grocery stores — the places you do a weekly shop — counted as establishments, not chains: three branches of one chain count as three. A zero is a real finding rather than missing data: around 850 counties have no supermarket at all, and the count is only written where the Census reached the county under the broader retail code, which proves it was covered. Convenience stores are counted separately, as convenienceStores, because a county with a filling station and no supermarket is a different place from one with three supermarkets. This counts shops inside the county line, so somewhere with none may still be ten minutes from a large store across the border.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "convenienceStores", "label": "Convenience stores", "description": "Convenience stores", "group": "Food", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Census County Business Patterns", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Convenience stores, counted separately from supermarkets. Read the two together: in a county with no supermarket these are where food is actually bought, and that usually means higher prices and less fresh food for the people living there. Establishments rather than chains, and inside the county line only.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "golfCourses", "label": "Golf courses & country clubs", "description": "Golf courses and country clubs", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Census County Business Patterns", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Census County Business Patterns establishments in NAICS 713910. This includes public golf courses, private country clubs, and facilities whose primary business is golf. It is a count of licensed business establishments inside the county, not a count of individual courses or a promise of public access.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "casinoEstablishments", "label": "Casinos & casino hotels", "description": "Casinos and casino hotels", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Census County Business Patterns", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Census County Business Patterns establishments classified as casinos (NAICS 713210) or casino hotels (NAICS 721120). The Census definition includes casinos with table wagering, riverboat casinos, racinos, and casino resorts. It excludes card rooms, bingo halls, slot-machine parlors, and limited gaming in bars or restaurants. CBP includes gambling industries and casino hotels among its government-establishment exceptions, but it does not identify tribal ownership separately. This is a count of payroll establishments inside the county, not a measure of access, size, or a list of venues.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "breweries100k", "label": "Breweries", "description": "Breweries per 100,000 residents", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "rate1d", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Census County Business Patterns; Census population estimates", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Payroll brewery establishments (NAICS 312120), per 100,000 residents. This is the Census business classification, not a promise of a taproom, tours, or public access. A blank means County Business Patterns did not publish the detailed county cell; it is not assumed to be zero.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "wineries100k", "label": "Wineries", "description": "Wineries per 100,000 residents", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "rate1d", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Census County Business Patterns; Census population estimates", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Payroll winery establishments (NAICS 312130), per 100,000 residents. This is an establishment count, not a count of vineyards, tasting rooms, or a guarantee of public access. A blank means County Business Patterns did not publish the detailed county cell; it is not assumed to be zero.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "distilleries100k", "label": "Distilleries", "description": "Distilleries per 100,000 residents", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "rate1d", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Census County Business Patterns; Census population estimates", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Payroll distillery establishments (NAICS 312140), per 100,000 residents. This is an establishment count, not a count of brands or tours, and it does not guarantee public access. A blank means County Business Patterns did not publish the detailed county cell; it is not assumed to be zero.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "foodFar", "label": "SNAP retailer access", "description": "Residents far from SNAP retailers (2025)", "group": "Food", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "USDA ERS Food Access Research Atlas (SRAM 2025)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Residents more than a mile by road from a SNAP-authorized food store in an urban area, or more than ten miles in a rural one. Driving distance along the road network rather than straight-line, because how far a shop is as the crow flies is not the question anyone has. Different from the store count beside it: a county can have several supermarkets clustered in one town and still leave most of its residents far from one. The thresholds are USDA’s own and are blunt by design — a mile is nothing with a car and a great deal without one, which is why vehicle access is measured separately in the source. The 2025 SRAM release is explicitly dated here rather than presented as current store inventory.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "foodDesert", "label": "Food deserts", "description": "Share living in a low-income, low-access tract", "group": "Food", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "USDA ERS Food Access Research Atlas (SRAM 2025)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Residents of tracts that are both low income and far from a food store — USDA’s definition of a food desert, which requires both conditions rather than distance alone. A wealthy county can be far from shops without qualifying, because a car makes distance manageable; the measure is about distance that people cannot easily overcome. Measured on 2020 tracts, so a neighbourhood that gained or lost a store since then is not reflected.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "popGrowth", "label": "Population change", "description": "Population change since 2020", "group": "Migration", "unit": "pctchg", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Census Population Estimates, comparing the latest year against the April 2020 census base. The whole series is retabulated onto one set of boundaries each vintage, so the two ends of the comparison are always the same geography — which is why Connecticut's planning regions have a figure here. Growth counts arrivals, births and deaths together; net migration rate separates out the moving part.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "births", "label": "Births", "description": "Births, annual", "group": "Migration", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Births recorded in the latest Census Population Estimates year. This is a raw count of people, so it naturally rises with the size of a place; the natural-change rate remains available when comparing places of very different sizes.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "deaths", "label": "Deaths", "description": "Deaths, annual", "group": "Migration", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Deaths recorded in the latest Census Population Estimates year. This is a raw count of people, so it naturally rises with the size of a place; the natural-change rate remains available when comparing places of very different sizes.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "naturalChange", "label": "Births minus deaths", "description": "Births minus deaths, annual", "group": "Migration", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Annual births minus annual deaths before anyone moves. Negative means the population would shrink without arrivals. This is a raw count; the rate is retained separately for scale-adjusted comparisons.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "internationalMigration", "label": "International migration", "description": "Net international migration, annual", "group": "Migration", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Annual net international migration in the Census Population Estimates Program. This is a raw count of people, not a measure of immigration policy or a count of all people born abroad.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "domesticMigration", "label": "Domestic migration", "description": "Net domestic migration, annual", "group": "Migration", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Annual net movement between U.S. counties in the Census Population Estimates Program. Positive means more people arrived from elsewhere in the U.S. than left; international arrivals are separate.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "netMigration", "label": "Annual net migration", "description": "People gained or lost to migration, annual", "group": "Migration", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Arrivals minus departures during the year, combining domestic and international migration. Positive means the county gained people through migration; negative means it lost them. This is fundamentally different from Recent arrivals: a county can have many newcomers and still lose population if even more people leave. Births and deaths are excluded.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "natChg", "label": "Natural change rate", "description": "Births minus deaths per 1,000 residents", "group": "Migration", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Births minus deaths per 1,000 residents, before anyone moves. Negative means the population would shrink without arrivals. Use the annual raw count beside it when place size itself matters.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "intlMig", "label": "International migration rate", "description": "Net international migration per 1,000 residents", "group": "Migration", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Net international migration per 1,000 residents. Shown separately from domestic migration because the two often point opposite ways. Use the annual raw count beside it when place size itself matters.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "newcomerRate", "label": "Recent arrivals", "description": "Residents who arrived in the past year", "group": "Migration", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-Year Table B07001", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The share of current residents age one and over who lived in a different county, state, or country one year earlier. This is a snapshot of who is here now after a recent move: it includes arrivals even when just as many people left. Unlike net migration, it cannot tell whether the county gained or lost people overall. It describes turnover, not whether a place welcomes newcomers or whether they stayed.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "age", "label": "Median age", "description": "Median age", "group": "Place", "unit": "age", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Half the population is older than this, half younger. Neither direction is better — a low median often means families and college towns, a high one means retirees and places young people have left. Read it alongside population trend.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "under18", "label": "Children", "description": "Share of residents under 18", "group": "Place", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "How much of the population is school age or younger. Read beside the share over 65: a county at the national median age can be families and retirees in equal measure, or neither, and the median alone cannot tell you which. This is the number that says whether a place feels like a family town.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "over65", "label": "Retirement age", "description": "Share of residents 65 and over", "group": "Place", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Residents at or past the usual retirement age. High figures mean retirement destinations and places young people have left, which look identical here and differ completely — read it against net migration and population change to tell them apart.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "livingAlone", "label": "Living alone", "description": "Share of households that are one person", "group": "Place", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Households of a single person, as a share of all households. High in cities and in places with many older residents, for opposite reasons. It is a household measure, not a population one — a place where a third of households are one person is not a place where a third of people live alone.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "householdSize", "label": "Household size", "description": "Average people per occupied household", "group": "Place", "unit": "num2", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS Table B25010", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average number of people living in an occupied housing unit. Vacant homes and people living in group quarters—such as dormitories, prisons, and nursing facilities—are outside this measure. It is an average, not a median or a typical family size. County figures use ACS 5-year data; state figures use ACS 1-year data.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "foreignBorn", "label": "Born abroad", "description": "Share of residents born outside the United States", "group": "Place", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Residents born outside the United States, including naturalised citizens. A plain count of where people were born, not of citizenship or of recent arrival — someone who arrived as a child fifty years ago is counted here.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "gini", "label": "Income inequality", "description": "Gini index of household income inequality", "group": "Money", "unit": "num2", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-Year Table B19083", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "How unevenly household income is distributed, on a zero-to-one index: zero would mean every household had the same income, while one would mean all income went to one household. It measures the income spread, not whether incomes are high or low — read it beside median income and poverty. This is the Census ACS Gini estimate from table B19083, not the SAIPE program, which does not publish a county Gini series.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "otherLanguage", "label": "Second languages", "description": "Share who speak a language other than English at home", "group": "Place", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Residents aged five and over who speak a language other than English at home. It says nothing about how well they speak English — most also speak it well, and the Census publishes that separately. Published as the English-only share; this is its complement.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "singleAdults25to44", "label": "Single adults", "description": "Single adults ages 25–44", "group": "Place", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-Year Table B12002", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Adults ages 25–44 recorded by the Census as never married, separated, widowed, or divorced, as a share of everyone in that age range. It is a marital-status snapshot—not a count of people seeking relationships, an orientation measure, or a measure of dating outcomes.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "veteranShare", "label": "Veterans", "description": "Share of civilian adults who are veterans", "group": "Place", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-Year", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Civilian population 18 and over who have served on active duty in the U.S. armed forces, as a share of the civilian adult population. It excludes people currently on active duty.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "disabilityShare", "label": "Disability", "description": "Share of residents with a disability", "group": "Place", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-Year", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of the civilian noninstitutionalized population reporting at least one ACS disability measure. It is a survey estimate of functional difficulty, not a count of benefit recipients or a measure of accessibility.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "religAdherent", "label": "Religious adherence", "description": "Share of residents on a religious body’s rolls", "group": "Place", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "2020 US Religion Census (ASARB)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Adherents reported by the 372 religious bodies that took part in the 2020 US Religion Census, as a share of population. Adherents means members, their children and others who participate — broader than membership, narrower than belief. Read the gap carefully: those bodies account for 48.6% of the US population nationally, so the remainder are not counted as irreligious. They are people whose tradition did not take part, who attend somewhere that keeps no rolls, or who believe without belonging. A county at 35% has 35% on a participating body’s rolls and this says nothing at all about the other 65%. The profile also lists the five largest reported bodies, not a measure of belief or attendance. Some totals are estimated where a body could not supply county detail, and a few counties exceed 100% because bodies report where a congregation sits rather than where its members sleep; those are capped.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "religCongregations", "label": "Congregations", "description": "Congregations per 100,000 residents", "group": "Place", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "2020 US Religion Census (ASARB)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Places of worship per 100,000 residents, from the same census of 372 participating bodies. Counts buildings and congregations rather than people, so a rural county of many small churches can rank far above a city with a few large ones. A count of congregations is not a measure of religiosity: it reflects how a tradition organises itself as much as how many people attend.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "migNet", "label": "Net migration over time", "description": "Net migration", "group": "Migration", "unit": "people", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau, components of population change", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "People who moved in minus people who moved out, summed over the selected window. This counts moves only — births and deaths are excluded, so it reflects where people are actually relocating rather than where the population happens to be rising. Positive means more arrived than left.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "migRate", "label": "Domestic migration rate", "description": "Net domestic migration per 1,000 residents", "group": "Migration", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Census PEP. Counts people moving between U.S. counties only, so it excludes international arrivals. Use the annual raw count beside it when place size itself matters. Withheld for counties under 1,000 residents: a handful of events on a denominator that small produces a rate that is arithmetically correct and practically meaningless.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "movedIn", "label": "Households arriving", "description": "Households that moved in", "group": "Migration", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "IRS Statistics of Income, county migration", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Households that filed a tax return from this county having filed from somewhere else the year before. IRS counts filed returns, so it misses people who do not file and counts a household once rather than per person; it will not reconcile with the Census net migration figure (migNet), which counts people. Flows under 20 returns are suppressed for disclosure, so this understates movement in small counties.", "missingWhere": "Not reported means the IRS suppressed the figure, not that nobody moved. Flows under 20 tax returns are withheld so individual households cannot be identified, which leaves 57 counties blank — all rural, the largest with about 2,500 people, mostly in the Plains and Mountain West." }, { "key": "movedOut", "label": "Households leaving", "description": "Households that moved away", "group": "Migration", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "IRS Statistics of Income, county migration", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Households that filed from this county one year and from somewhere else the next. Same basis and same limits as households in.", "missingWhere": "Not reported means the IRS suppressed the figure, not that nobody moved. Flows under 20 tax returns are withheld so individual households cannot be identified, which leaves 57 counties blank — all rural, the largest with about 2,500 people, mostly in the Plains and Mountain West." }, { "key": "agiIn", "label": "Income of arrivals", "description": "Average income of arriving households", "group": "Migration", "unit": "usd", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "IRS Statistics of Income, county migration", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average adjusted gross income of the households that moved in, from their tax returns. Read it against the income of leavers: a county can grow while the people arriving earn less than the people going, which population change alone will not tell you. Adjusted gross income is not take-home pay and excludes untaxed income.", "missingWhere": "Not reported means the IRS suppressed the figure, not that nobody moved. Flows under 20 tax returns are withheld so individual households cannot be identified, which leaves 57 counties blank — all rural, the largest with about 2,500 people, mostly in the Plains and Mountain West." }, { "key": "agiOut", "label": "Income of leavers", "description": "Average income of departing households", "group": "Migration", "unit": "usd", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "IRS Statistics of Income, county migration", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average adjusted gross income of the households that moved away. Neither direction is straightforwardly good: leavers earning more can mean people priced out or cashing out, and the figure says nothing about why they left.", "missingWhere": "Not reported means the IRS suppressed the figure, not that nobody moved. Flows under 20 tax returns are withheld so individual households cannot be identified, which leaves 57 counties blank — all rural, the largest with about 2,500 people, mostly in the Plains and Mountain West." }, { "key": "permitRate", "label": "Homebuilding rate", "description": "Homes authorised per 1,000 existing homes", "group": "Housing", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Housing units authorised by building permits in a year, per 1,000 homes already standing. Permits are the first step in construction, so this leads the rest of the site: population change says where people went, this says where housing is being built for them. Per thousand rather than as a count, or the ranking would just repeat population. Counted as units rather than buildings — a forty-unit block is one building and forty homes. Neutral by design: heavy building means a growing market to some readers and a changing one to others.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "permitGrowthBalance", "label": "Homes built vs. growth", "description": "5-year home permits vs. population growth", "group": "Housing", "unit": "pp", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey; Population Estimates Program", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "A five-year housing-production balance: 2021–2025 permitted homes as a share of the current surveyed housing stock, minus Census population change from the 2020 base to 2025, in percentage points. Positive means permitted homes rose faster than population; negative means population rose faster. It is a pace comparison, not a count of completed homes, a measure of vacancies, affordability, household size, zoning, demand, or whether construction matched the homes people need. Permits can expire or never be built, and population change also includes births and deaths. State values use statewide summed permits and housing stock, not an average of county balances.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "permitUnits", "label": "Homes permitted · count", "description": "Housing units authorised in the latest year", "group": "Housing", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The raw count behind permitRate, for readers who want the absolute scale of building rather than its intensity. Covers privately-owned residential construction in permit-issuing places, which the Census puts at more than 99% of what gets built.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "permitMulti", "label": "Multifamily share of permits", "description": "Share of permitted homes in multifamily buildings", "group": "Housing", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "How much of the new housing is flats and multi-unit buildings rather than detached houses. A useful read on what a place is becoming: a county permitting mostly single houses is spreading outward, one permitting mostly multifamily is densifying. Withheld below 25 units authorised, where a couple of duplexes would read as a construction boom in flats.", "missingWhere": "Counties authorising fewer than 25 homes in the year." }, { "key": "crime", "label": "Violent crime", "description": "Reported violent crime rate", "group": "Crime", "unit": "rate", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FBI Crime Data Explorer", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Violent crimes reported to law enforcement per 100,000 residents statewide, FBI Crime Data Explorer annual data. This is a statewide reported-crime rate, not a county ranking, victimization survey, or prediction of individual safety.", "missingWhere": "Statewide only, deliberately. FBI reporting is by law-enforcement agency, not by county: adding agencies produces a reporting-completeness measure rather than a crime measure, especially through the NIBRS transition. County profiles show their state figure plainly rather than fabricate a local rate." }, { "key": "crimeProperty", "label": "Property crime", "description": "Reported property crime rate", "group": "Crime", "unit": "rate", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FBI Crime Data Explorer", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Property crimes reported to law enforcement per 100,000 residents statewide, FBI Crime Data Explorer annual data. This combines burglary, larceny-theft and motor-vehicle theft. It is a reported-crime measure, not a county safety ranking or an estimate of unreported crime.", "missingWhere": "Statewide only, deliberately. FBI reporting is by law-enforcement agency, not by county: adding agencies produces a reporting-completeness measure rather than a crime measure, especially through the NIBRS transition. County profiles show their state figure plainly rather than fabricate a local rate." }, { "key": "crimeHomicide", "label": "Reported murder", "description": "Reported murder rate", "group": "Crime", "unit": "rate", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FBI Crime Data Explorer", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Murders reported to law enforcement per 100,000 residents statewide, FBI Crime Data Explorer annual data. This is an agency-reported offense measure, distinct from CDC death-certificate mortality data.", "missingWhere": "Statewide only, deliberately. FBI reporting is by law-enforcement agency, not by county: adding agencies produces a reporting-completeness measure rather than a crime measure, especially through the NIBRS transition. County profiles show their state figure plainly rather than fabricate a local rate." }, { "key": "crimeVehicleTheft", "label": "Vehicle theft", "description": "Reported motor-vehicle theft rate", "group": "Crime", "unit": "rate", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FBI Crime Data Explorer", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Motor-vehicle thefts reported to law enforcement per 100,000 residents statewide, FBI Crime Data Explorer annual data. This is a statewide reported-offense rate, not a county ranking or a measure of insurance risk.", "missingWhere": "Statewide only, deliberately. FBI reporting is by law-enforcement agency, not by county: adding agencies produces a reporting-completeness measure rather than a crime measure, especially through the NIBRS transition. County profiles show their state figure plainly rather than fabricate a local rate." }, { "key": "homicideDeaths", "label": "Homicide deaths", "description": "Homicide deaths per 100,000 residents", "group": "Crime", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "County Health Rankings & Roadmaps; NCHS mortality files", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Deaths from assault per 100,000 residents, using County Health Rankings’ multi-year county rate from NCHS death certificates. This is a mortality outcome, not police-reported crime and not a count of incidents occurring inside the county: deaths are assigned to the resident’s home county. Counties with fewer than ten homicide deaths in the source period are suppressed and shown as unavailable, never as zero. Updated annually.", "missingWhere": "County Health Rankings suppresses this rate when fewer than ten homicide deaths occurred in the multi-year source period. Unavailable means the source did not publish a stable rate; it does not mean zero homicides." }, { "key": "firearmDeaths", "label": "Firearm deaths", "description": "Firearm deaths per 100,000 residents", "group": "Crime", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "County Health Rankings & Roadmaps; NCHS mortality files", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Deaths involving a firearm per 100,000 residents, using County Health Rankings’ multi-year rate from NCHS death certificates. This includes suicide, homicide, unintentional injury, legal intervention and undetermined intent; it is not a gun-crime rate, a count of shootings, or a measure of incidents occurring inside the county. Deaths are assigned to the resident’s home county. Counties with small source counts are suppressed and shown as unavailable, never as zero. Updated annually.", "missingWhere": "County Health Rankings suppresses small-count county rates. Unavailable means the source did not publish a stable rate; it does not mean that no firearm deaths occurred." }, { "key": "polMargin", "label": "Presidential margin", "description": "2024 presidential margin", "group": "Politics & voting", "unit": "margin", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "MIT Election Data and Science Lab, County Presidential Election Returns 2000–2024", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The Democratic-versus-Republican margin in the 2024 presidential vote: positive is a Republican lead and negative a Democratic lead. It is a description of how a place voted, not a judgment, and carries no weight in Find your fit. Presidential results only; local and down-ballot races can differ.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "polSwing", "label": "2020–24 swing", "description": "Presidential margin shift, 2020–24", "group": "Politics & voting", "unit": "margin", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "MIT Election Data and Science Lab, County Presidential Election Returns 2000–2024", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Change in the two-party presidential margin from 2020 to 2024, in percentage points. Positive means the place moved toward Republicans; negative means it moved toward Democrats. This is movement between two elections, not a prediction or a measure of local races.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "polFlips", "label": "Party flips", "description": "Presidential party flips since 2000", "group": "Politics & voting", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "MIT Election Data and Science Lab, County Presidential Election Returns 2000–2024", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "How many times the two-party presidential winner changed between adjacent elections from 2000 through 2024. A zero means the same party led in every available election; it does not measure the size of the margin.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "polStreak", "label": "Current streak", "description": "Consecutive presidential wins by current party", "group": "Politics & voting", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "MIT Election Data and Science Lab, County Presidential Election Returns 2000–2024", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Consecutive presidential elections won by the party that led here in 2024, counting back to 2000. It is a simple history of presidential results, not a forecast.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "polBallotsAdult", "label": "Ballots per adult resident", "description": "2024 presidential ballots per 100 adult residents", "group": "Politics & voting", "unit": "num1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "MIT Election Data and Science Lab; U.S. Census Bureau ACS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "2024 presidential ballots cast per 100 residents estimated to be age 18 or older. This is not turnout: the denominator includes noncitizens and other adults who cannot vote, while vote totals can include ballots cast by people who later moved. It is an intentionally broad participation context, not an eligible-voter rate.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "cvapTurnout", "label": "CVAP ballot rate", "description": "2024 presidential ballots per citizen voting-age resident", "group": "Politics & voting", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "MIT Election Data and Science Lab; U.S. Census Bureau 2020–2024 ACS CVAP special tabulation", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "2024 presidential ballots cast per 100 Census-estimated U.S. citizens age 18 or older. This is a closer turnout proxy than ballots per all adult residents, because its denominator excludes noncitizen adults. It is not an official eligible-voter or registration-based turnout rate: it does not remove people ineligible under state law, and election totals and the ACS five-year estimate are not a person-by-person match. Values can exceed 100% where those timing and coverage differences matter. Presidential results only; local and down-ballot participation can differ.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "commute", "label": "Commute", "description": "Mean one-way commute time", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "min", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS Tables B08013 and B08303", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average one-way travel time to work, in minutes, calculated as ACS aggregate travel time (B08013) divided by workers who did not work from home (B08303). County estimates use the ACS 5-year release so every county is covered; state estimates use ACS 1-year. It describes usual commute patterns, not today’s traffic, a specific route, or a remote worker’s commute.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "transit", "label": "Transit commuters", "description": "Workers who commute by public transit", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS Table B08301", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of workers age 16+ whose usual trip to work uses public transportation, excluding taxicab. This describes regular commuting patterns, not whether a route is nearby, frequent, affordable, or useful for every trip.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "driveAlone", "label": "Drive-alone commute", "description": "Workers who drive alone to work", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS Table B08301", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of workers age 16+ whose usual commute is driving alone in a car, truck or van. This is a direct Census commute-pattern measure, not a car-dependency index: it does not tell us whether transit, walking or cycling is workable from a particular address, and it says nothing about errands or household vehicle needs.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "airportMi", "label": "Distance to airline service", "description": "Miles to nearest airport with airline service", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "mi", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FAA Air Carrier Activity (ACAIS) enplanements; BTS NTAD Aviation Facilities", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Straight-line miles from the county's population-weighted centre to the nearest airport the FAA classifies as commercial service, meaning it boards at least 2,500 passengers a year on scheduled flights. Driving distance is longer, and considerably longer where mountains or water intervene. The label names the FAA hub size, so a large hub and a single Essential Air Service route are not presented as the same thing. Airports without scheduled service are measured separately.", "missingWhere": "Needs a county centroid, which Connecticut's planning regions do not yet have." }, { "key": "evPorts", "label": "EV charging ports", "description": "Public EV charging ports", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Charging ports open to the public and currently in service, counted where the station sits. Ports rather than stations: a site with twelve stalls is not the same as twelve sites with one, and the port count is what decides whether you wait. Private fleet depots and workplace-only chargers are excluded because a resident cannot use them. Use the companion per-100,000-residents measure to compare coverage across populations, but keep this count in view: a tiny county can look unusually well supplied after dividing a single charger by a small population. A county with none is genuinely without public charging inside its own lines, though somewhere over the county line may be closer than somewhere within it.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "evPorts100k", "label": "EV ports per 100k", "description": "Public EV charging ports per 100,000 residents", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "places100k", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center; U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Public EV charging ports in service divided by the resident population, for comparing charging capacity across places of different sizes. It complements, rather than replaces, the raw port count: one truck-stop charger can produce a very high rate in a sparsely populated county, while a large metro can have many more chargers and a lower rate. It does not measure distance to a charger, connector compatibility, uptime, pricing, queues, private charging, or cross-county access. Ports are counted where the station sits; population is the current Census estimate used elsewhere on the site.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "evFast", "label": "DC fast-charging ports", "description": "Public DC fast-charging ports", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Public direct-current fast-charging ports in service, counted where the station sits. This is the faster charging equipment generally useful on longer trips; it is a subset of all public charging ports, not a measure of whether a nearby connector, payment method, or stall is available when you arrive. Private fleet depots and workplace-only chargers are excluded. A county with none has no public DC fast-charging port inside its own lines, though one may be close by across a county boundary.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "airportEnp", "label": "Airport traffic", "description": "Passengers boarding at the nearest airline airport", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "num", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "FAA", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Annual passenger boardings at the airport in the airportMi measure. Distance alone does not distinguish a field with two flights a day from a hub — this does. It describes the airport, not the county, so neighbouring counties served by the same airport share a figure.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "gaAirportMi", "label": "Distance to general aviation", "description": "Miles to nearest general aviation field", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "mi", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "FAA Air Carrier Activity (ACAIS) enplanements; BTS NTAD Aviation Facilities", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Straight-line miles to the nearest public-use airport with no scheduled passenger service. Relevant if you fly yourself or charter; otherwise it mostly indicates how rural a county is. Private strips are excluded.", "missingWhere": "Needs a county centroid, which Connecticut's planning regions do not yet have." }, { "key": "airportN", "label": "Airline airports", "description": "Airports with airline service located here", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "FAA Air Carrier Activity (ACAIS) enplanements; BTS NTAD Aviation Facilities", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "How many airports with scheduled passenger service sit inside this area. Most counties have none, which is normal and is why the distance measure matters more; at state level it shows how many separate places you can fly from. Counted from the FAA's commercial service list.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "gaAirportN", "label": "GA airfields", "description": "General aviation airfields located here", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "BTS NTAD Aviation Facilities", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "How many public-use airports without scheduled passenger service sit inside this area. Private strips, heliports and seaplane bases are excluded.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "railN", "label": "Train stations", "description": "Passenger train stations and the railway network", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "BTS NTAD Amtrak Stations", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "How many Amtrak rail stations sit inside this area, shaded on the map, with the railway network drawn over it. Most counties have no station. Bus-only stops are excluded. The national view shows the passenger network; open a state for freight, yards and other track.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "railMi", "label": "Distance to passenger rail", "description": "Miles to the nearest passenger rail station", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "mi", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "Amtrak via ArcGIS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Straight-line distance from the county's population-weighted centre to the closest Amtrak station, so it measures from where people live rather than the county's geometric middle. A county with no station of its own can still sit twenty minutes from one.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "interstateMi", "label": "Highways & freeways", "description": "Miles to the nearest Interstate", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "mi", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau TIGERweb Transportation, Primary Roads (Interstates), Jan. 1 2025", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Straight-line miles from the county's population-weighted centre to the nearest Interstate centreline. This is not driving distance and does not assert access to an interchange; local terrain, water and the road network can make the trip much longer. Interstate geometry and major route labels are drawn when a state is open. Alaska and Hawaii have no Interstate route in this source, so they are left without a value rather than assigned a fabricated zero.", "missingWhere": "No Interstate route in this source, or no county centroid." }, { "key": "baPlus", "label": "Bachelor's or higher", "description": "Adults 25+ with a bachelor's degree or higher", "group": "Schools", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Census ACS 5-year, table B15003. Measures the adults who live here, not the schools — a college town and a county that keeps its graduates read the same way.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "hsPlus", "label": "High school or higher", "description": "Adults 25+ with a high school diploma or higher", "group": "Schools", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Census ACS 5-year, table B15003, counting every level from a regular diploma upward.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "someCollegeNoDegree", "label": "Some college", "description": "Adults 25+ with some college and no degree", "group": "Schools", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS Table B15003", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of adults 25 and over whose highest completed level is some college but no degree. Associate's degree holders are excluded and shown separately, so the categories do not overlap. This describes resident attainment, not local college quality or current enrollment. County figures use ACS 5-year data; state figures use ACS 1-year data.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "associateDegree", "label": "Associate's degree", "description": "Adults 25+ with an associate's degree", "group": "Schools", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS Table B15003", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of adults 25 and over whose highest completed credential is an associate's degree. It excludes people whose highest credential is a bachelor's or graduate degree, making this a distinct category rather than part of the some-college figure. County figures use ACS 5-year data; state figures use ACS 1-year data.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "graduateDegree", "label": "Graduate degree", "description": "Adults 25+ with a graduate or professional degree", "group": "Schools", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS Table B15003", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of adults 25 and over with a master's, professional-school, or doctorate degree as their highest credential. Bachelor's-only residents are not included. This describes the people who live here, not school performance or whether local jobs require advanced degrees. County figures use ACS 5-year data; state figures use ACS 1-year data.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "naepMath4", "label": "Grade 4 math", "description": "Grade 4 NAEP mathematics average score", "group": "Schools", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NCES National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average 2024 NAEP mathematics score for the state's representative sample of fourth-grade public-school students, on NAEP's 0–500 scale. This is the closest consistent state-to-state learning measure, but it is not a state proficiency percentage, an individual score, or a rating of every school. Sampling uncertainty means small score differences may not be statistically meaningful; compare only the same subject and grade.", "missingWhere": "State-level only. NAEP does not publish representative estimates for counties. Select urban-district results are not county coverage, so county values are not inferred; a county view shows its state's estimate uniformly." }, { "key": "naepMath8", "label": "Grade 8 math", "description": "Grade 8 NAEP mathematics average score", "group": "Schools", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NCES National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average 2024 NAEP mathematics score for the state's representative sample of eighth-grade public-school students, on NAEP's 0–500 scale. This is the closest consistent state-to-state learning measure, but it is not a state proficiency percentage, an individual score, or a rating of every school. Sampling uncertainty means small score differences may not be statistically meaningful; compare only the same subject and grade.", "missingWhere": "State-level only. NAEP does not publish representative estimates for counties. Select urban-district results are not county coverage, so county values are not inferred; a county view shows its state's estimate uniformly." }, { "key": "naepReading4", "label": "Grade 4 reading", "description": "Grade 4 NAEP reading average score", "group": "Schools", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NCES National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average 2024 NAEP reading score for the state's representative sample of fourth-grade public-school students, on NAEP's 0–500 scale. This is a consistent state-to-state learning measure, but it is not a state proficiency percentage, an individual score, or a rating of every school. Sampling uncertainty means small score differences may not be statistically meaningful; compare only the same subject and grade.", "missingWhere": "State-level only. NAEP does not publish representative estimates for counties. Select urban-district results are not county coverage, so county values are not inferred; a county view shows its state's estimate uniformly." }, { "key": "naepReading8", "label": "Grade 8 reading", "description": "Grade 8 NAEP reading average score", "group": "Schools", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NCES National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average 2024 NAEP reading score for the state's representative sample of eighth-grade public-school students, on NAEP's 0–500 scale. This is a consistent state-to-state learning measure, but it is not a state proficiency percentage, an individual score, or a rating of every school. Sampling uncertainty means small score differences may not be statistically meaningful; compare only the same subject and grade.", "missingWhere": "State-level only. NAEP does not publish representative estimates for counties. Select urban-district results are not county coverage, so county values are not inferred; a county view shows its state's estimate uniformly." }, { "key": "naepMath8EconGap", "label": "Math economic gap", "description": "Grade 8 NAEP mathematics economic score gap (points)", "group": "Schools", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NCES National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "2024 grade 8 mathematics average for public-school students not classified as economically disadvantaged minus the average for those classified as economically disadvantaged. A positive number is the score-point gap on NAEP's scale. A smaller gap is not automatically a better outcome because both groups could score lower, and group composition and eligibility rules differ; read this beside both the overall score and NAEP uncertainty.", "missingWhere": "State-level only. NAEP does not publish representative estimates for counties. Select urban-district results are not county coverage, so county values are not inferred; a county view shows its state's estimate uniformly." }, { "key": "naepReading8EconGap", "label": "Reading economic gap", "description": "Grade 8 NAEP reading economic score gap (points)", "group": "Schools", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NCES National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "2024 grade 8 reading average for public-school students not classified as economically disadvantaged minus the average for those classified as economically disadvantaged. A positive number is the score-point gap on NAEP's scale. A smaller gap is not automatically a better outcome because both groups could score lower, and group composition and eligibility rules differ; read this beside both the overall score and NAEP uncertainty.", "missingWhere": "State-level only. NAEP does not publish representative estimates for counties. Select urban-district results are not county coverage, so county values are not inferred; a county view shows its state's estimate uniformly." }, { "key": "schoolDistricts", "label": "School districts", "description": "Unified school districts", "group": "Schools", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line School Districts", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Count of Census unified school districts. State totals count every published district; county totals count districts whose Census internal point falls in the county, so a district crossing a county line is drawn in both places but counted once at its internal point. Boundary lines show the published district geography, not attendance zones or a guarantee of school assignment.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "libraries", "label": "Public libraries", "description": "Public library outlets", "group": "Schools", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "IMLS Public Libraries Survey", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Library branches, bookmobiles and books-by-mail services, counted where each one stands. Outlets rather than systems: a system is an administrative body that might run twelve branches across a county, and the branch is the thing you can walk into. The Public Libraries Survey is a census rather than a directory, with state library agencies reporting every public library, so a county reading zero genuinely has no outlet rather than nobody having registered one. Counted, not rated: outlets per head would rank a single rural branch above a city system. Placed by coordinate rather than by the county name in the file, which still uses Connecticut's abolished counties and cannot see Virginia's independent cities. Institute of Museum and Library Services, FY2023.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "schoolsN", "label": "Public schools", "description": "Public schools in the county", "group": "Schools", "unit": "num", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NCES via Urban Institute", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "NCES Common Core of Data 2024. Counted where each school actually is, not where its district office is. Virtual schools and schools reporting no students are excluded.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "students", "label": "Students", "description": "Public school enrollment", "group": "Schools", "unit": "num", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NCES via Urban Institute", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "NCES Common Core of Data 2024, summed from the schools inside the county.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "ptRatio", "label": "Students per teacher", "description": "Students per full-time teacher", "group": "Schools", "unit": "num1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "NCES via Urban Institute", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Enrollment divided by full-time-equivalent teachers, summed across the county's schools. A staffing measure, not a quality ranking — no free authoritative source publishes school quality by county. Where a state did not report teacher counts in the latest year — Tennessee reported none for 2024 after reporting them for 96% of its schools through 2023 — the ratio is taken from that state's most recent year with data, using that year's enrollment too so the figure measures one year rather than mixing two. School and student counts stay current.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "frpl", "label": "Free lunch eligible", "description": "Share of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch", "group": "Schools", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NCES Common Core of Data", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The standard proxy for poverty in a school district: eligibility is set against household income. Read as a description of the students a district serves rather than of the schools themselves. One caveat matters — districts increasingly use community eligibility, which feeds every child free and reports the whole school as eligible, so a high figure can mean a genuinely poor area or a district that opted into universal meals. Shown only where schools covering at least 60% of a county's enrolment reported it, because a share taken from partial reporting describes the reporting schools rather than the county.", "missingWhere": "Counties where too few schools reported, and those with no public schools." }, { "key": "schoolsElem", "label": "Elementary schools", "description": "Elementary schools", "group": "Schools", "unit": "num", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NCES via Urban Institute", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "NCES's own definition: lowest grade 3 or below and highest grade 8 or below. Pre-kindergarten counts as below kindergarten, which matters because whether a state codes pre-K at all is a reporting convention — Texas does for thousands of schools and California for none.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "schoolsMid", "label": "Middle schools", "description": "Middle schools", "group": "Schools", "unit": "num", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NCES via Urban Institute", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "NCES's own definition: lowest grade 4 or above and highest grade 9 or below.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "schoolsHigh", "label": "High schools", "description": "High schools", "group": "Schools", "unit": "num", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "NCES via Urban Institute", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "NCES's own definition: lowest grade 7 or above and highest grade 12 or below. Schools spanning a wider range, K–12 most often, are counted separately rather than forced into a band.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "collegeBA", "label": "Colleges", "description": "Institutions granting bachelor's degrees or above", "group": "Schools", "unit": "num", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "IPEDS via Urban Institute", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "IPEDS 2024, active institutions only. Labelled by what the source code means: some community colleges granting applied bachelor's degrees are included.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "collegePublic", "label": "Public colleges", "description": "Share of local colleges that are public", "group": "Schools", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "IPEDS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Public institutions as a share of those in the county, the rest being private non-profit and for-profit. It matters mostly for price: in-state tuition exists only at public institutions. Shown only where the county has at least one college, since a share of nothing is not zero percent.", "missingWhere": "Counties with no college." }, { "key": "college2", "label": "Two-year colleges", "description": "Two-year institutions", "group": "Schools", "unit": "num", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "IPEDS via Urban Institute", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "IPEDS 2024, active institutions only.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "collegeMi", "label": "Nearest college", "description": "Miles to the nearest bachelor's-granting institution", "group": "Schools", "unit": "mi", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "IPEDS via Urban Institute", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Straight-line distance from the county's population-weighted centre to the nearest campus, so it measures from where people live rather than the county's geometric middle.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "teamsPro", "label": "Sports", "description": "Major pro sports teams based here", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "League feeds; venue city hand-checked", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Clubs in the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL combined. Placed by the county its venue is in, not the one in its name, so a club often counts in a neighbouring county to the city it is named for. A zero means no club in the leagues listed here, not no sport: college divisions below the top tier, other leagues and independent baseball are not counted.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "teamsNFL", "label": "NFL", "description": "NFL sports teams based here", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "League feed; venue city hand-checked", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "All 32 clubs, every one of them in a state. Placed by the county its venue is in, not the one in its name, so a club often counts in a neighbouring county to the city it is named for. A zero means no club in the leagues listed here, not no sport: college divisions below the top tier, other leagues and independent baseball are not counted.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "teamsNBA", "label": "NBA", "description": "NBA sports teams based here", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "League feed; venue city hand-checked", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Toronto is in the NBA but not in any state, so 29 of the 30 clubs appear. Placed by the county its venue is in, not the one in its name, so a club often counts in a neighbouring county to the city it is named for. A zero means no club in the leagues listed here, not no sport: college divisions below the top tier, other leagues and independent baseball are not counted.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "teamsMLB", "label": "MLB", "description": "MLB sports teams based here", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "League feed; venue city hand-checked", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Toronto is in MLB but not in any state, so 29 of the 30 clubs appear. Placed by the county its venue is in, not the one in its name, so a club often counts in a neighbouring county to the city it is named for. A zero means no club in the leagues listed here, not no sport: college divisions below the top tier, other leagues and independent baseball are not counted.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "teamsNHL", "label": "NHL", "description": "NHL sports teams based here", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "League feed; venue city hand-checked", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Seven of the 32 clubs are Canadian, so 25 appear. Placed by the county its venue is in, not the one in its name, so a club often counts in a neighbouring county to the city it is named for. A zero means no club in the leagues listed here, not no sport: college divisions below the top tier, other leagues and independent baseball are not counted.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "teamsMLS", "label": "MLS", "description": "MLS soccer sports teams based here", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "League feed; venue city hand-checked", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Major League Soccer, the top division of American soccer. Three of the 30 clubs are Canadian, so 27 appear. Several share a ground with an NFL or college club, so a county can hold both. Placed by the county its venue is in, not the one in its name, so a club often counts in a neighbouring county to the city it is named for. A zero means no club in the leagues listed here, not no sport: lower soccer divisions are not counted.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "teamsCFB", "label": "College football", "description": "Top-division college football sports teams", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "Roster reconciled against per-state counts compiled separately", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Football Bowl Subdivision programmes, the top tier of college football. Lower divisions are not counted, so a state can have plenty of college football and still read zero. Clubs are placed in the county their stadium is in, as every other league here is. A zero means no club in the leagues listed here, not no sport: minor league baseball, lower college divisions and other leagues are not counted.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "teamsFCS", "label": "College football (FCS)", "description": "Second-tier college football sports teams", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "Conference membership from 2026 schedule releases, hand-checked", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Football Championship Subdivision programmes, the second tier of college football, counted separately from the FBS tier. Twelve states have no FCS programme at all, so a zero here is often correct rather than missing. Clubs are placed in the county their stadium is in.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "teamsMiLB", "label": "Minor league baseball", "description": "Affiliated minor league baseball sports teams", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "League club listing, 2026 season", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Affiliated minor league baseball, the clubs tied to a major league organisation. Independent leagues are not counted. One Canadian club does not appear. Placed by the county its venue is in, not the one in its name, so a club often counts in a neighbouring county to the city it is named for. A zero means no club in the leagues listed here, not no sport: college divisions below the top tier, other leagues and independent baseball are not counted.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "teamsAHL", "label": "AHL hockey", "description": "AHL hockey sports teams based here", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "League arena list, 2025-26", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The AHL is the top minor league in hockey, one tier below the NHL. Six of the 32 clubs are Canadian and do not appear. Placed by the county its venue is in, not the one in its name, so a club often counts in a neighbouring county to the city it is named for. A zero means no club in the leagues listed here, not no sport: college divisions below the top tier, other leagues and independent baseball are not counted.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "teamsECHL", "label": "ECHL hockey", "description": "ECHL hockey sports teams based here", "group": "Recreation", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "League divisional announcement and arena list, 2025-26", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The ECHL is professional hockey a tier below the AHL. One of the 30 clubs is Canadian and does not appear. Placed by the county its venue is in, not the one in its name, so a club often counts in a neighbouring county to the city it is named for. A zero means no club in the leagues listed here, not no sport: college divisions below the top tier, other leagues and independent baseball are not counted.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "broadband", "label": "Broadband subscriptions", "description": "Households with broadband", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of households subscribing to a broadband internet service. This measures actual adoption rather than advertised availability, which tends to overstate real-world coverage. Low numbers can reflect cost as much as infrastructure.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "fiberAvailable", "label": "Fiber availability", "description": "Locations with fiber available", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "FCC Broadband Data Collection", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of broadband-serviceable locations where a provider reports fiber service is available. This is provider-reported availability, not measured speed or proof that service can be ordered at a particular address today. FCC still files Connecticut at its former county geography, so its nine planning regions are left blank rather than estimated.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "terrestrial10020", "label": "100/20 internet availability", "description": "Locations with terrestrial service at 100/20+", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "FCC Broadband Data Collection", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of broadband-serviceable locations where a provider reports terrestrial service with advertised speeds of at least 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up. Satellite is excluded. This is provider-reported availability, not measured speed or proof that service can be ordered at a particular address today. FCC still files Connecticut at its former county geography, so its nine planning regions are left blank rather than estimated.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "mobile5gAvailable", "label": "5G mobile availability", "description": "Residents with 5G mobile availability", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "FCC Connect2Health / Broadband Data Collection", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of residents with outdoor stationary 5G-NR mobile service reported at advertised speeds of at least 35 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. This is provider-reported availability, not a measure of actual speeds, indoor signal, reliability, congestion, customer experience or coverage while driving. County figures are FCC Connect2Health’s county aggregation of FCC Broadband Data Collection coverage; state figures are population-weighted from those county values.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "noVehicle", "label": "No vehicle", "description": "Households without a vehicle", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of households with no vehicle available. This is not a judgement about car ownership: it matters most alongside transit, walkability and distance to essentials.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "wfh", "label": "Remote work", "description": "Workers who work from home", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of workers age 16+ whose usual commute is working from home. It describes how common remote work is locally, not whether a specific job can be done remotely.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "remoteEligible", "label": "Remote-eligible jobs", "description": "Jobs compatible with working from home", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS; Dingel & Neiman; BLS OEWS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Estimated share of local jobs in occupation groups whose tasks are compatible with working from home. County and state ACS occupation mixes are weighted with Dingel and Neiman’s occupation-level estimates and BLS OEWS employment. It measures task compatibility—not current remote work, local job openings, employer policy, internet access, or whether a particular role can be done remotely.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "occManagementProfessional", "label": "Management & professional", "description": "Share of employed residents in management, business, science and arts", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year, Data Profile DP03", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Employed residents age 16+ in management, business, science and arts occupations, including residents who commute elsewhere. This is not the share of jobs located here; small-county percentages can move sharply.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "occService", "label": "Service occupations", "description": "Share of employed residents in service occupations", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year, Data Profile DP03", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Employed residents age 16+ in service occupations, including residents who commute elsewhere. This is not the share of jobs located here; small-county percentages can move sharply.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "occSalesOffice", "label": "Sales & office", "description": "Share of employed residents in sales and office occupations", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year, Data Profile DP03", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Employed residents age 16+ in sales and office occupations, including residents who commute elsewhere. This is not the share of jobs located here; small-county percentages can move sharply.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "occConstructionResources", "label": "Construction & resources", "description": "Share of employed residents in construction, maintenance and natural resources", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year, Data Profile DP03", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Employed residents age 16+ in natural resources, construction and maintenance occupations, including residents who commute elsewhere. This is not the share of jobs located here; small-county percentages can move sharply.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "occProductionTransportation", "label": "Production & transportation", "description": "Share of employed residents in production and transportation", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year, Data Profile DP03", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Employed residents age 16+ in production, transportation and material-moving occupations, including residents who commute elsewhere. This is not the share of jobs located here; small-county percentages can move sharply.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "lifeExpectancy", "label": "Life expectancy", "description": "Life expectancy at birth", "group": "Health", "unit": "num1", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "County Health Rankings, NCHS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The average number of years a person born here could expect to live, given current death rates at every age. It is a description of the county now, not a forecast for anyone in particular, and it moves with income, smoking, addiction and access to care rather than with anything about the place itself. The gap between the best and worst US counties is over twenty years. Small counties rest on few deaths, so a single year is noisier there than the figure suggests. County Health Rankings, from National Center for Health Statistics mortality files.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "cancerDeaths", "label": "Cancer mortality", "description": "Cancer deaths per 100,000 residents", "group": "Health", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "CDC WONDER / NCHS Underlying Cause of Death", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Deaths from malignant neoplasms per 100,000 residents, pooled across 2020–2024 and assigned by residence. State maps use age-adjusted rates so states with different age structures are more comparable; county maps use pooled crude rates because CDC WONDER does not provide age-adjusted rates when grouped by county. Do not compare a county figure directly with its state figure. This is a population outcome, not an individual cancer-risk estimate, a count of diagnoses, or a rating of local cancer care.", "missingWhere": "County rows that CDC suppresses or marks statistically unreliable are left blank, not shown as zero." }, { "key": "heartDiseaseDeaths", "label": "Heart disease mortality", "description": "Heart disease deaths per 100,000 residents", "group": "Health", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "CDC WONDER / NCHS Underlying Cause of Death", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Deaths from diseases of heart per 100,000 residents, pooled across 2020–2024 and assigned by residence. State maps use age-adjusted rates so states with different age structures are more comparable; county maps use pooled crude rates because CDC WONDER does not provide age-adjusted rates when grouped by county. Do not compare a county figure directly with its state figure. This is a broad death-certificate category, not heart-attack incidence, an individual-risk estimate, or a rating of local cardiac care.", "missingWhere": "County rows that CDC suppresses or marks statistically unreliable are left blank, not shown as zero." }, { "key": "strokeDeaths", "label": "Stroke mortality", "description": "Stroke deaths per 100,000 residents", "group": "Health", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "CDC WONDER / NCHS Underlying Cause of Death", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Deaths from cerebrovascular diseases per 100,000 residents, pooled across 2020–2024 and assigned by residence. State maps use age-adjusted rates so states with different age structures are more comparable; county maps use pooled crude rates because CDC WONDER does not provide age-adjusted rates when grouped by county. Do not compare a county figure directly with its state figure. This is mortality recorded on death certificates, not stroke incidence, disability prevalence, an individual-risk estimate, or a rating of local care.", "missingWhere": "County rows that CDC suppresses or marks statistically unreliable are left blank, not shown as zero." }, { "key": "alcoholInducedDeaths", "label": "Alcohol-induced mortality", "description": "Alcohol-induced deaths per 100,000 residents", "group": "Health", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "CDC WONDER / NCHS Underlying Cause of Death", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Deaths from CDC’s alcohol-induced causes per 100,000 residents, pooled across 2020–2024 and assigned by residence. State maps use age-adjusted rates so states with different age structures are more comparable; county maps use pooled crude rates because CDC WONDER does not provide age-adjusted rates when grouped by county. Do not compare a county figure directly with its state figure. The category includes deaths wholly attributable to alcohol under the CDC definition; it is not alcohol use prevalence, all deaths involving alcohol, impaired-driving incidents, or an individual-risk estimate.", "missingWhere": "County rows that CDC suppresses or marks statistically unreliable are left blank, not shown as zero." }, { "key": "suicideDeaths", "label": "Suicide deaths", "description": "Suicide deaths per 100,000 residents", "group": "Health", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "County Health Rankings, NCHS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Deaths from suicide per 100,000 residents, using death certificates and the county of the person’s residence. This is a multi-year population outcome, not a measure of any individual or of local care quality.", "missingWhere": "County Health Rankings withholds rates where the underlying death count is too small to publish. A blank is suppressed data, not zero deaths." }, { "key": "overdoseDeaths", "label": "Overdose deaths", "description": "Drug overdose deaths per 100,000 residents", "group": "Health", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "County Health Rankings, NCHS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Deaths from drug overdose per 100,000 residents, using death certificates and the county of the person’s residence. This is a multi-year mortality outcome, not drug-crime data or a measure of treatment quality.", "missingWhere": "County Health Rankings withholds rates where the underlying death count is too small to publish. A blank is suppressed data, not zero deaths." }, { "key": "mentalHealthProviders", "label": "Mental-health doctors", "description": "Psychiatrists per 100,000 residents", "group": "Health", "unit": "rate1d", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "HRSA Area Health Resources File (2024–2025 release; psychiatrist data year varies by release)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "MD and DO psychiatrists per 100,000 residents. This is the local specialist supply, not an estimate of therapy appointments, insurance acceptance, wait times, quality of care, or residents’ mental health. It excludes psychologists, counselors and social workers because HRSA’s county file does not publish one comparable all-professions total.", "missingWhere": "Withheld for counties under 1,000 residents because one psychiatrist can create an unstable per-capita rate. A published zero means HRSA recorded no psychiatrist, not that mental-health care is unavailable." }, { "key": "dentists", "label": "Dentists", "description": "Private-practice dentists per 100,000 residents", "group": "Health", "unit": "rate1d", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "HRSA Area Health Resources File (2024–2025 release; dentist data year 2023)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Active private-practice dentists per 100,000 residents. This is local professional supply, not a measure of appointment availability, insurance acceptance, price, dental-health outcomes, or the distance to the nearest office.", "missingWhere": "Withheld for counties under 1,000 residents because one dentist can make a per-capita rate misleadingly volatile. A published zero means the HRSA source records no private-practice dentist." }, { "key": "obesity", "label": "Obesity", "description": "Adult obesity prevalence", "group": "Health", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "CDC PLACES 2025 release (2023 BRFSS)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Estimated share of adults with obesity (BMI of 30 or higher). This is a model-based CDC small-area estimate based on BRFSS, Census population estimates and ACS data—not a countywide clinical measurement or a verdict on individual health.", "missingWhere": "CDC PLACES publishes estimates where the adult population is at least 50. A blank is unavailable model output, not zero obesity." }, { "key": "seniorPrimaryCare", "label": "Primary care for older adults", "description": "Primary care physicians per 100,000 adults 65+", "group": "Health", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "County Health Rankings and U.S. Census Bureau ACS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Primary-care physician supply expressed against the number of residents age 65 and over, rather than the whole population. It is a retirement-relevant capacity signal: higher means more primary-care physicians relative to the older population. It does not measure whether a doctor accepts Medicare, has appointments or is nearby.", "missingWhere": "Withheld where fewer than 1,000 adults age 65+ make the denominator too small. Counties where County Health Rankings suppresses the physician count are also blank." }, { "key": "hospitals", "label": "Hospitals", "description": "Medicare-certified hospitals in this county", "group": "Health", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Every hospital certified by Medicare with an address in the county, from the CMS provider file. Zero is a real answer and is shown as zero: most rural counties have none, and their residents drive to the next county. That is the honest limit of this measure — it counts what is inside the county line, and the CMS file publishes no coordinates, so a distance to the nearest hospital cannot be derived from it. A county with none may still be twenty minutes from one. Connecticut is placed by town rather than by county: CMS still files its hospitals under the counties abolished in 2022, so none of the planning regions match by name, but every hospital carries a town and the town-to-region map built for the map itself resolves them. Where a state cannot be placed either way it is left blank rather than written as zero, which would assert an absence of hospitals rather than of data.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "hospitalsER", "label": "Emergency rooms", "description": "Hospitals here with an emergency department", "group": "Health", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "How many of the county's hospitals run an emergency department, which for most people is the part that matters. A hospital without one is often a specialty or surgical facility, and cannot help at two in the morning.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "erHospitalMi", "label": "ER hospital distance", "description": "Miles to nearest ER-capable hospital", "group": "Health", "unit": "mi", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "CMS Hospital General Information; Census Geocoder; HRSA", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Straight-line miles from the county's population-weighted center to the nearest CMS-listed hospital with emergency services; driving distance can be longer, especially across mountains or water. The facility set includes 4,483 hospitals: CMS supplies the emergency-department flag, Census geocodes the address, and HRSA's CMS-provider-number point layer recovers most Census misses. Six military-base facilities are excluded because they are not generally public access; six ordinary hospitals remain unresolved and are excluded rather than guessed. This is access context, not ambulance travel time or a guarantee of capacity.", "missingWhere": "Needs a county population center." }, { "key": "hospitalRating", "label": "Hospital rating", "description": "Average CMS star rating of hospitals here", "group": "Health", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "CMS rates hospitals from one to five stars on mortality, safety, readmission, patient experience and timely care. This averages the rated hospitals in the county. Hospitals too small or too new to be rated are excluded rather than counted as zero, so a county's average can rest on a single hospital — read it beside the count.", "missingWhere": "Counties whose hospitals are all unrated, and counties with no hospital." }, { "key": "nursingHomes", "label": "Nursing homes", "description": "Medicare-certified nursing homes", "group": "Health", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "CMS Care Compare", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Active Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing homes, counted where their CMS-published coordinates fall. This is a facility count, not a measure of availability: certified beds provide that context.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "nursingHomeBeds", "label": "Certified nursing-home beds", "description": "Certified nursing-home beds", "group": "Health", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "CMS Care Compare", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Certified beds across the county's active Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing homes. A bed is licensed capacity, not a guarantee that it is vacant today.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "nursingHomeRating", "label": "Nursing home rating", "description": "Average nursing-home overall rating", "group": "Health", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "CMS Care Compare", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average CMS Overall Five-Star Rating among rated nursing homes in the county. CMS combines health inspections, staffing and quality measures; homes without an overall rating are not treated as zero.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "aqiWinter", "label": "Winter AQI", "description": "Winter air quality index", "group": "Health", "unit": "num1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "EPA AirData (2025)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average daily EPA Air Quality Index for December through February. Lower is cleaner; the AQI reports the day’s worst measured pollutant, so it captures smoke and ozone as well as particle pollution.", "missingWhere": "EPA publishes this only for counties with nearby reporting monitors. A blank is no sufficiently complete monitoring record, not clean air." }, { "key": "aqiSpring", "label": "Spring AQI", "description": "Spring air quality index", "group": "Health", "unit": "num1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "EPA AirData (2025)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average daily EPA Air Quality Index for March through May. Lower is cleaner; the AQI reports the day’s worst measured pollutant.", "missingWhere": "EPA publishes this only for counties with nearby reporting monitors. A blank is no sufficiently complete monitoring record, not clean air." }, { "key": "aqiSummer", "label": "Summer AQI", "description": "Summer air quality index", "group": "Health", "unit": "num1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "EPA AirData (2025)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average daily EPA Air Quality Index for June through August. Lower is cleaner; summer ozone and wildfire smoke can make this differ sharply from the annual average.", "missingWhere": "EPA publishes this only for counties with nearby reporting monitors. A blank is no sufficiently complete monitoring record, not clean air." }, { "key": "aqiFall", "label": "Fall AQI", "description": "Fall air quality index", "group": "Health", "unit": "num1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "EPA AirData (2025)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Average daily EPA Air Quality Index for September through November. Lower is cleaner; the AQI reports the day’s worst measured pollutant.", "missingWhere": "EPA publishes this only for counties with nearby reporting monitors. A blank is no sufficiently complete monitoring record, not clean air." }, { "key": "drinkingWaterHealthVio", "label": "Drinking-water violations", "description": "Community water systems with current health-based violations", "group": "Utilities", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. EPA ECHO / SDWIS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of active community water systems serving the county that EPA flags with a current health-based violation—an exceeded contaminant or disinfectant limit, or a required treatment-technique violation. A system serving multiple counties is included in each county; state figures count each system once. This is system compliance context, not a tap-water test, a severity score, or a measure of private wells. Federal SDWIS/ECHO data update quarterly and can lag three to six months; EPA also warns that reported records can contain inaccuracies or underreporting.", "missingWhere": "Blank means EPA links no active community water system to this current county equivalent, or has not mapped its current geography. It does not mean zero violations." }, { "key": "transportNoise60", "label": "Transportation noise", "description": "Residents exposed to transportation noise", "group": "Health", "unit": "pct", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "BTS National Transportation Noise Map (2020), population aggregation by Seto & Huang", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of residents estimated to be exposed to modeled road, rail, or aviation transportation noise at LAeq 60 dB or above. This is a national-scale average-day model, not a site measurement or a prediction of what a specific home sounds like.", "missingWhere": "Connecticut planning regions cannot be matched to this source’s legacy county geography and are deliberately unavailable." }, { "key": "uninsured", "label": "Uninsured", "description": "Without health insurance", "group": "Health", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of the civilian population with no health insurance coverage. A proxy for healthcare access: high uninsured rates often track with fewer local providers and longer travel to care.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "foodInsecure", "label": "Food insecurity", "description": "Adults who were food insecure in the past year", "group": "Food", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "CDC PLACES", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Adults who could not reliably afford enough food at some point in the past twelve months. A modelled estimate rather than a count: CDC projects the national BRFSS survey onto counties using local demographics, so this is what a population like this one typically reports, not what this county was asked. Close to a measurement in a large county, leaning heavily on the model in a small rural one. It measures affordability, not distance to a shop — a county can have groceries on every corner and high food insecurity. Coverage is partial and unevenly so: these questions come from an optional survey module that not every state runs, so around 2,300 of 3,143 counties have a figure and the missing ones are whole states rather than scattered gaps. A blank state here means its survey did not ask, not that nobody there is affected.", "missingWhere": "This state does not include these questions in its health survey, so no figure is published for anywhere in it. That is a gap in the survey, not a finding about the place." }, { "key": "foodStamps", "label": "Food assistance", "description": "Adults who received food assistance in the past year", "group": "Food", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "CDC PLACES", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Adults who received SNAP benefits in the past twelve months, modelled the same way. Shown as a plain fact rather than as good or bad: a high figure reflects both how much need there is and how well a state enrols the people who qualify, and those pull in opposite directions. Two counties with identical hardship can differ here purely because one state makes applying easier. Coverage is partial and unevenly so: these questions come from an optional survey module that not every state runs, so around 2,300 of 3,143 counties have a figure and the missing ones are whole states rather than scattered gaps. A blank state here means its survey did not ask, not that nobody there is affected.", "missingWhere": "This state does not include these questions in its health survey, so no figure is published for anywhere in it. That is a gap in the survey, not a finding about the place." }, { "key": "mentalDistress", "label": "Mental distress", "description": "Frequent mental distress", "group": "Health", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "CDC PLACES", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Adults reporting their mental health was not good for 14 or more days in the past 30 days. A modeled population estimate — community context, not a diagnosis or a rating of residents.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "inactivity", "label": "Physical inactivity", "description": "No leisure-time physical activity", "group": "Health", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "CDC PLACES", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Adults reporting no leisure-time physical activity in the past month. A modeled population estimate that reflects many local factors, including time, safety, access and health.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "diabetes", "label": "Diabetes", "description": "Diagnosed diabetes", "group": "Health", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "CDC PLACES", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Adults who report a diabetes diagnosis. This is a modeled population estimate, useful as health context rather than a measure of individual risk or care quality.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "asthma", "label": "Asthma", "description": "Adults with current asthma", "group": "Health", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "CDC PLACES 2025 release (2023 BRFSS)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Estimated share of adults who currently have asthma. This is CDC PLACES’ modeled county estimate, built from BRFSS, Census population estimates, and ACS data—not a count of local diagnoses, an air-quality measurement, a measure of asthma severity, or a prediction of an individual’s risk. It describes the current adult population and can reflect care access, smoking, housing, work, age, and many other factors besides local conditions.", "missingWhere": "CDC’s current 2025 PLACES release has no 2023-BRFSS modeled output for Kentucky or Pennsylvania. Unavailable is not zero asthma and should not be read as a finding about either state." }, { "key": "smoking", "label": "Cigarette smoking", "description": "Adults who currently smoke cigarettes", "group": "Health", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "CDC PLACES 2025 release (2023 BRFSS)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Estimated share of adults who currently smoke cigarettes. This is CDC PLACES’ modeled county estimate, built from BRFSS, Census population estimates, and ACS data—not a survey of every county resident, a measure of vaping or other tobacco use, or a judgment of people who live here. It is population health context, not an individual-risk prediction.", "missingWhere": "CDC’s current 2025 PLACES release has no 2023-BRFSS modeled output for Kentucky or Pennsylvania. Unavailable is not zero smoking and should not be read as a finding about either state." }, { "key": "unemp", "label": "Unemployment", "description": "Unemployment rate", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "State: BLS LAUS monthly. County: Census ACS 5-yr average.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "unempNoHs", "label": "Unemployment — no diploma", "description": "Unemployment: no high-school diploma", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS Table B23006", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Unemployment among the civilian labor force ages 25–64 without a high-school diploma. County estimates use ACS 5-year data; state estimates use ACS 1-year data. This is a labor-market signal, not a measure of earnings, job quality, openings, underemployment, or whether a degree is rewarded.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "unempHs", "label": "Unemployment — high school", "description": "Unemployment: high-school graduates", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS Table B23006", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Unemployment among the civilian labor force ages 25–64 with a high-school diploma or equivalent. County estimates use ACS 5-year data; state estimates use ACS 1-year data. This is a labor-market signal, not a measure of earnings, job quality, openings, underemployment, or whether a degree is rewarded.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "unempSomeCollege", "label": "Unemployment — some college", "description": "Unemployment: some college or associate degree", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS Table B23006", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Unemployment among the civilian labor force ages 25–64 with some college or an associate degree. County estimates use ACS 5-year data; state estimates use ACS 1-year data. This is a labor-market signal, not a measure of earnings, job quality, openings, underemployment, or whether a degree is rewarded.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "unempBachelors", "label": "Unemployment — bachelor’s+", "description": "Unemployment: bachelor’s degree or higher", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS Table B23006", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Unemployment among the civilian labor force ages 25–64 with a bachelor’s degree or higher. County estimates use ACS 5-year data; state estimates use ACS 1-year data. This is a labor-market signal, not a measure of earnings, job quality, openings, underemployment, or whether a degree is rewarded.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "businessApps", "label": "Business applications", "description": "New business applications", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Applications for a new Employer Identification Number in the latest year. This is early business-starting activity, not proof that every applicant opened a business or hired anyone. Census excludes estates, trusts, tax liens, applications without a county code and some industries.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "businessAppsChange", "label": "Business application trend", "description": "One-year change in business applications", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Year-over-year change in new business applications. A rise signals more local business-starting activity; it is not the same as new employer businesses, which Census can confirm only later.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "businessEntryRate", "label": "Employer establishment births", "description": "New employer establishments per 1,000 adults", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau Business Dynamics Statistics", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Employer establishments born during the last 12 months, per 1,000 adults. This is Census BDS’s confirmed establishment-entry measure, not an EIN application and not necessarily a new firm — an existing company can open another local establishment. BDS covers most private non-agricultural employment and suppresses small cells; unavailable means Census did not publish a stable county value, not zero new businesses.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "businessSurvival", "label": "Business survival", "description": "Existing establishments remaining open, annual", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau Business Dynamics Statistics (2023)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "100 minus the Census BDS annual establishment exit rate: the share of establishments that did not close during the year. It is an economy-wide one-year measure, not a cohort survival rate and not limited to tiny firms.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "gigNonemployers1k", "label": "Gig-adjacent independents", "description": "Gig-adjacent independent businesses per 1,000 residents", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau Nonemployer Statistics (2023)", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Tax-reporting businesses with no paid employees, per 1,000 residents, in Census Nonemployer Statistics industries for rideshare/taxi services (4853), couriers and messengers (492), and independent artists, writers, and performers (71151). This is a narrow proxy for independent gig-adjacent business activity—not a count of all freelancers, platform workers, jobs, earnings, rides, deliveries, demand, or local service availability.", "missingWhere": "A missing county value means Census did not publish the detailed industry total. It does not mean no independent workers or services are present." }, { "key": "laborForce", "label": "Labor force", "description": "Share of adults in the labor force", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The share of people 16 and over who are working or looking for work. Low figures mean a place is retired rather than unemployed — the two look identical in a jobless rate, which only counts people actively looking. Read alongside median age: a retirement county and a county where people have stopped looking both sit low here, and they are very different places.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "selfEmp", "label": "Self-employed", "description": "Share of workers who are self-employed", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Workers in their own unincorporated business, as a share of the civilian employed. High in farming and ranching counties, in resort towns built on trades and services, and in places with a strong freelance economy. Excludes people who incorporated, so it understates small business owners somewhat.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "govWork", "label": "Government jobs", "description": "Share of workers employed by government", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Federal, state and local government as a share of the civilian employed, including public school teachers and university staff. Steadies a local economy through downturns, and concentrates in state capitals, county seats, military towns and places built around a public university.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "indTopShare", "label": "Industry concentration", "description": "Industry concentration", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "How much of local employment sits in whichever industry is biggest here. A county where one industry employs a third of workers rises and falls with that industry; one where the largest is a seventh is diversified. The industry itself is named on the county profile — this measures concentration rather than which industry it is.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "gdpPerCapita", "label": "Economic output", "description": "Economic output per resident", "group": "Jobs", "unit": "usd", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "Bureau of Economic Analysis", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "County GDP divided by population — the value of everything produced here in a year, per person living here. The dollar total on its own would only rank counties by size, with Los Angeles permanently on top; per resident it measures how intense the local economy is. One caveat has to travel with it: output is counted where work happens and population where people sleep, so a county full of offices that empties at night reads very high and the commuter suburb beside it reads low, without either being richer. This describes the local economy, not local incomes — median income (income) is the one that describes households. Shaded on a logarithmic scale: a handful of oil counties with a few hundred residents produce millions of dollars of output each, which is real rather than an error, and on a straight scale they flatten every other county to the palest shade.", "missingWhere": "Counties under 1,000 residents, where dividing real output by a few dozen people produces a figure in the millions; counties where BEA withholds the number for disclosure; and those with no population estimate." }, { "key": "poverty", "label": "Poverty rate", "description": "People below the federal poverty threshold", "group": "Money", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS Table B17001", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of people for whom poverty status is determined whose household or family income falls below the Census poverty threshold. The threshold varies by family size and composition but not by local cost of living. County figures use ACS 5-year data; state figures use ACS 1-year data.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "childPoverty", "label": "Child poverty", "description": "Children under 18 below the federal poverty threshold", "group": "Money", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS Table B17001", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of children under 18 for whom poverty status is determined who live below the Census poverty threshold. The denominator is children, not the whole population; institutionalized children and other people without a determined poverty status are outside the table. County figures use ACS 5-year data; state figures use ACS 1-year data.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "seniorPoverty", "label": "Senior poverty", "description": "Adults 65+ below the federal poverty threshold", "group": "Money", "unit": "pct1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. Census Bureau ACS Table B17001", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Share of adults age 65 and over for whom poverty status is determined who live below the Census poverty threshold. The denominator is seniors, not the whole population, and the federal threshold is not adjusted for local living costs. County figures use ACS 5-year data; state figures use ACS 1-year data.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "bankBranches", "label": "Bank branches", "description": "FDIC-insured bank branches", "group": "Money", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": true, "source": "FDIC BankFind", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "FDIC-insured bank branches, counted where they stand. A branch is a place to deposit cash, arrange a mortgage or resolve an account issue in person; it is not an ATM and does not include credit unions, which are regulated separately. Counted rather than per person: one rural branch can matter more than a high per-capita ratio suggests.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "flood", "label": "Flood risk", "description": "Riverine flood risk", "group": "Risk", "unit": "score", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FEMA National Risk Index", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "FEMA National Risk Index score for flooding along rivers and streams, combining how often it happens with what it would cost. Separate from coastal flooding beside it, because inland and shoreline flooding threaten different places for different reasons. Flood is the most common and most expensive natural disaster in the United States, and standard homeowner policies do not cover it.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "coastalFlood", "label": "Coastal flood risk", "description": "Coastal flood risk", "group": "Risk", "unit": "score", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FEMA National Risk Index", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "FEMA National Risk Index score for flooding driven by storm surge and high tides. Zero for inland counties by definition, so it shades only where a coastline exists.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "drought", "label": "Drought risk", "description": "Drought risk", "group": "Risk", "unit": "score", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FEMA National Risk Index", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "FEMA National Risk Index score for drought. Matters less for a building than for what surrounds it — water rates, well reliability, irrigation limits and, indirectly, the wildfire score beside it.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "droughtNow", "label": "Drought now", "description": "Current drought severity", "group": "Risk", "unit": "drought", "higherIsBetter": null, "source": "U.S. Drought Monitor", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "A weekly U.S. Drought Monitor observation, not a permanent county trait. The map shows the category covering the largest share of each county; the county profile retains the source’s cumulative D0–D4 area shares, so a small severe pocket is not hidden. The legend gives the observation date.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "landslide", "label": "Landslide risk", "description": "Landslide risk", "group": "Risk", "unit": "score", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FEMA National Risk Index", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "FEMA National Risk Index score for landslides. Concentrated in steep terrain, and often the hazard that decides whether a particular lot is buildable rather than whether a county is.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "hail", "label": "Hail risk", "description": "Hail risk", "group": "Risk", "unit": "score", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FEMA National Risk Index", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "FEMA National Risk Index score for hail. Rarely life-threatening and routinely expensive: hail is a leading driver of roof claims, and of home insurance premiums across the plains.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "quake", "label": "Earthquake risk", "description": "Earthquake risk", "group": "Risk", "unit": "score", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FEMA National Risk Index", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "FEMA National Risk Index percentile, 0-100. Reflects both ground-shaking likelihood and what is exposed to it, so a populated fault zone scores higher than empty land with the same geology.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "tornado", "label": "Tornado risk", "description": "Tornado risk", "group": "Risk", "unit": "score", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FEMA National Risk Index", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "FEMA National Risk Index percentile, 0-100. Highest through the central plains; near zero on the west coast and in Alaska.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "hurricane", "label": "Hurricane risk", "description": "Tropical cyclone risk", "group": "Risk", "unit": "score", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FEMA National Risk Index", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "FEMA National Risk Index percentile, 0-100. Covers hurricanes and tropical storms including remnants, so parts of New England read higher than their latitude suggests. Landlocked interior states read zero.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "heat", "label": "Heat risk", "description": "Extreme heat risk", "group": "Risk", "unit": "score", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FEMA National Risk Index", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "FEMA National Risk Index percentile, 0-100, for heat waves severe enough to cause harm rather than ordinary warm weather.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "winter", "label": "Winter weather risk", "description": "Winter weather risk", "group": "Risk", "unit": "score", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FEMA National Risk Index", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "FEMA National Risk Index percentile, 0-100, covering severe winter storms — snow, ice and extreme cold.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "wind", "label": "Wind risk", "description": "Strong wind risk", "group": "Risk", "unit": "score", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FEMA National Risk Index", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "FEMA National Risk Index percentile, 0-100, for damaging straight-line winds, separate from tornado and hurricane risk.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "wildfire", "label": "Wildfire risk", "description": "Wildfire risk", "group": "Risk", "unit": "score", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FEMA", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "FEMA National Risk Index percentile, 0-100 — higher means greater wildfire risk. Reflects both how likely fire is and how much is exposed to it, so populated areas near wildland score higher. State figure is a population-weighted average of its counties.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "disasterDeclarations", "label": "Federal disaster history", "description": "Major federal disaster declarations since 2000", "group": "Risk", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "FEMA OpenFEMA", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Major FEMA disaster declarations affecting this county since 2000. A declaration is counted once even when several federal assistance programs apply. It measures events that crossed the federal assistance threshold, not every storm, fire or dollar of damage; use it as historic context beside FEMA's forward-looking hazard scores.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "superfundSites", "label": "Superfund sites", "description": "EPA Superfund sites", "group": "Risk", "unit": "int", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "U.S. EPA Superfund", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "EPA Superfund sites, counted where their published coordinates fall. These are hazardous-waste cleanups in the federal Superfund program; a site can be actively investigated, under cleanup, or long since cleaned up, so this is not a measure of current exposure.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "injuryDeaths", "label": "Injury deaths", "description": "Deaths from injury per 100,000 residents", "group": "Risk", "unit": "rate1", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "County Health Rankings, NCHS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "Deaths from injuries per 100,000 residents, using death certificates and the county of the person’s residence. This broad outcome includes unintentional injuries and intentional injuries such as homicide and suicide; it is not a prediction of risk at a particular home or a local safety score.", "missingWhere": "County Health Rankings withholds rates where the underlying death count is too small to publish. A blank is suppressed data, not zero deaths." }, { "key": "roadFatal", "label": "Road safety", "description": "Traffic deaths", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "rate1d", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "NHTSA FARS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "People killed in motor-vehicle crashes per 100,000 residents. Fatal crashes are counted where they occurred, so this reflects road conditions and travel exposure as well as resident risk. Withheld for counties under 1,000 residents: a handful of events on a denominator that small produces a rate that is arithmetically correct and practically meaningless.", "missingWhere": null }, { "key": "roadFatalChg", "label": "Road safety trend", "description": "Change in traffic deaths per 100,000", "group": "Transportation", "unit": "rate1d", "higherIsBetter": false, "source": "NHTSA FARS", "visualOnly": false, "caveat": "The change in the traffic-death rate against the previous reporting period. Negative means fewer deaths per head than before. Fatal crashes are rare in small counties, so a single crash can swing the rate hard — read this alongside the population, not on its own. Withheld for counties under 1,000 residents: a handful of events on a denominator that small produces a rate that is arithmetically correct and practically meaningless.", "missingWhere": null } ], "series": [ { "key": "pol", "label": "Presidential results by year", "shape": [ "year", "democratPct", "republicanPct" ], "source": "MIT Election Data and Science Lab" }, { "key": "mig", "label": "Migration by year", "shape": [ "year", "netMigration", "netDomesticMigration" ], "source": "U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program" }, { "key": "weatherHistory", "label": "Weather by year", "shape": [ "year", "avgTempF", "precipIn", "snowIn", "days90F", "freezeDays" ], "source": "NOAA" }, { "key": "ind", "label": "Employment by industry, percent", "shape": "13 industries, see /api/v1/metrics", "source": "Census ACS" }, { "key": "occ", "label": "Employment by occupation, percent", "shape": "5 groups, see /api/v1/metrics", "source": "Census ACS" }, { "key": "builtEra", "label": "Housing by decade built, percent", "shape": "10 decades, oldest first", "source": "Census ACS" }, { "key": "fromTop", "label": "Largest origins of arrivals", "shape": [ [ "countyFips", "taxReturnHouseholds", "people", "agiThousands" ] ], "source": "IRS Statistics of Income" }, { "key": "toTop", "label": "Largest destinations of leavers", "shape": [ [ "countyFips", "taxReturnHouseholds", "people", "agiThousands" ] ], "source": "IRS Statistics of Income" } ], "counts": { "metrics": 292, "withheld": 12, "groups": 20 }, "withheld": [ { "key": "home", "reason": "Zillow's terms restrict redistribution of their data." }, { "key": "homeYoY", "reason": "Zillow's terms restrict redistribution of their data." }, { "key": "rent", "reason": "Zillow's terms restrict redistribution of their data." }, { "key": "afford", "reason": "Derived from Zillow, so it carries the same restriction." }, { "key": "col", "reason": "C2ER licenses the cost of living index commercially; MERIC republishes it." }, { "key": "adjIncome", "reason": "Derived from the C2ER index, so it carries the same restriction." }, { "key": "insurance", "reason": "Insurance.com's own compilation rather than a public record." }, { "key": "healthcare", "reason": "KFF publishes under CC BY-NC-ND, which permits neither commercial use nor derivatives." }, { "key": "childcare", "reason": "EPI and Child Care Aware's own compilation." }, { "key": "gas", "reason": "AAA's own price survey rather than a public record." }, { "key": "docs", "reason": "County Health Rankings licenses its data for non-profit use only." }, { "key": "pm25", "reason": "County Health Rankings licenses its data for non-profit use only." } ], "meta": { "attribution": "MoverMath — https://movermath.com", "licence": "https://movermath.com/api/v1/licence" } }