Bull ShoalsAR
A town of 1,888, settled in 1949. 93% more nonprofits per person than the typical Arkansas town.
Trash day: TuesdayIs Bull Shoals a good place to live?
Bull Shoals’ best subject grade is an A− for civic life; its weakest is a D for incomes. 31% of the land in Bull Shoals is conserved, where Arkansas’ towns sit at 0.8% and U.S. towns at 4.3%. Bull Shoals has 3 places on the National Register of Historic Places, among them Fairview School Building and William Jasper Johnson House. Bull Shoals has fewer than 2,500 residents, so it gets subject grades but no overall grade.
What makes Bull Shoals stand out
Where Bull Shoals beats most towns.
Community nonprofits per 1,000 residents
91% of working residents leave Bull Shoals for work
Where Bull Shoals’s working residents go each day. Line width shows the share.
Census LEHD 2023
How Bull Shoals grades
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within Arkansas), ordered by how far Bull Shoals is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Moving to Bull Shoals: who provides what
Who provides power, water and the rest in Bull Shoals, and how to reach them.
EPA SDWIS (Oct 9, 2026) · HIFLD + EIA-861 2025 · Census 2020 ZCTAs · NCES 2024–25 · registration: vote.gov, updated Nov 18, 2024.
The data
Ordered by what stands out in Bull Shoals.
On CDC estimates, Bull Shoals is less healthy than 85% of U.S. towns
Among 124 Arkansas towns, just 8 have a higher share of adults who have high blood pressure than Bull Shoals. The town does better than the Arkansas average on 7 of 32 CDC measures and worse on 10. For adults in the town, the share who report frequent physical distress is 20%. In Bull Shoals, nearly a fifth of adults have diabetes, above both Arkansas’ towns (13%) and U.S. towns (12%).
| Bull Shoals | Arkansas towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diabetes (CDC PLACES) | 19% | 13% | 12% |
| High blood pressure (CDC PLACES) | 51% | 41% | 35% |
| Frequent physical distress (CDC PLACES) | 20% | 16% | 14% |
| Binge drink (CDC PLACES) | 11% | 15% | 16% |
| What stands out | Bull Shoals | AR |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer adults facing housing insecurity | 10.3% | 14.4% |
| Fewer binge drinkers | 10.8% | 14.6% |
| More adults with heart disease | 13.5% | 7.7% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
Bull Shoals keeps nearly a third of its land conserved
2.2 miles of trail. Bull Shoals’ density of trails is 0.5 miles per square mile.
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
Compared with most of Arkansas and the rest of the country, fewer of Bull Shoals’ residents are under 18
17% of adults 25 and older hold a bachelor’s degree or more in Bull Shoals. Among 124 Arkansas towns, just 4 have a higher share of residents 65 or older than Bull Shoals. Bull Shoals’ median age stands at 50.2 years. It has lost 3.4% of its people since 2020, down to 1,888 in the Census Bureau’s 2025 estimate.
| Bull Shoals | Arkansas towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aged 65 or older | 32% | 16% | 18% |
| Under 18 | 14% | 25% | 22% |
| Median age | 50.2 years | 36.6 years | 40.5 years |
| Bachelor’s degree or more, 25+ | 17% | 20% | 29% |
Ages · share of residents
Education · adults 25 and older
Women and men · all residents
51% women, 49% men
That’s an even split within the survey’s margin of ±7.5 points. Across Arkansas, 50.6% of residents are women.
| Bull Shoals | AR | U.S. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 10 | 6% | 12.3% | 11.6% |
| 10 to 17 | 8% | 10.8% | 10.3% |
| 18 to 24 | 4.4% | 9.4% | 9.1% |
| 25 to 34 | 11.9% | 13% | 13.7% |
| 35 to 44 | 12.5% | 12.7% | 13.2% |
| 45 to 54 | 12.9% | 11.8% | 12.2% |
| 55 to 64 | 12.5% | 12.5% | 12.7% |
| 65 to 74 | 16% | 10.3% | 10.2% |
| 75 and older | 15.9% | 7.2% | 7% |
| No diploma | 13.5% | 11.3% | 10.4% |
| High school | 33.9% | 34.1% | 26% |
| Some college | 24.4% | 20.7% | 19.1% |
| Associate’s | 10.9% | 8.2% | 8.8% |
| Bachelor’s | 11.2% | 16.3% | 21.6% |
| Graduate | 6% | 9.5% | 14.1% |
Census population estimates, 2025 · U.S. Census Bureau · ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates · in a town of 1,900, single groups can be off by several points
With only 0.3 jobs per working resident, most people in Bull Shoals work out of town
Half commute less than 12 miles. Between 2013 and 2023, jobs in Bull Shoals dropped by 142, to 183. Commuting out is the norm in the town: nearly a tenth of working residents work locally. Bull Shoals’ income of the median household comes in at $42,000.
| Bull Shoals | Arkansas towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $42,000 | $55,000 | $80,000 |
| Working residents who work in town | 8.7% | 22% | 8% |
| Average trip to work | 26 minutes | 21 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Below the poverty line | 15% | 18% | 9.6% |
Where working residents work
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
The biggest natural risk in Bull Shoals is ice storms, at a high overall level
On expected storm and flood damage, Bull Shoals sits above 73% of U.S. communities. 29% of the town’s expected losses from natural hazards come from ice storms, followed by inland flooding at 26%. Federal disaster aid has reached households in Bull Shoals after 9 declared disasters, most recently in 2024.
FEMA disaster declarations and aid · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
Typical low → high °F
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
Violent crime in Bull Shoals is lower than in the typical Arkansas or U.S. town
Bull Shoals reports less crime per resident than nearly two thirds of the U.S. towns and cities we grade. The property crime rate for Bull Shoals comes to 4.7 per 1,000 residents.
| Bull Shoals | Arkansas towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crimes per 1,000 (2025) | 0 per 1,000 residents | 3.6 | 1.6 |
| Property crimes per 1,000 (2025) | 4.7 per 1,000 residents | 13.6 | 9.9 |
Violent crime per 1,000 residents
Property crime per 1,000 residents
FBI crime data, 2025 · crimes reported to police
The typical home in Bull Shoals: about $210K
Home values are down 2.4% over the year to September 2026. For Bull Shoals, the typical rent is $715 a month. The share of households in Bull Shoals who live in a home they own: 70%.
| Bull Shoals | Arkansas towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median rent | $715 a month | $878 a month | $1,185 a month |
| Households that own their home | 70% | 60% | 73% |
Typical home value
Census ACS, 2020–24 · Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
Everything we know about Bull Shoals
Colleges nearby
1 within 15 miles of the center of Bull Shoals
About 1 of every 100 Bull Shoals residents are enrolled in college, against 5 across Arkansas.
About Bull Shoals
City in Arkansas, United States
Bull Shoals is a city in Marion County, Arkansas, United States, founded in 1954. The population was 1,952 at the 2020 census. Primarily a retirement and vacation center, Bull Shoals is bordered in three directions by the clear, deep, man-made Bull Shoals Lake.
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
- Established
- 1954
- Area
- 5.0 sq mi
- Elevation
- 801 ft
- ZIP code
- 72619
- Area code
- 870
Questions about Bull Shoals
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Is Bull Shoals, AR a good place to live?
93% more nonprofits per person than the typical Arkansas town.
Is Bull Shoals, AR expensive?
Not for the area. That is 4.3 years of the area's median household income ($48,619 across the county). Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades B+.