AmestiCA
A town of 2,818.
Is Amesti a good place to live?
Amesti grades D overall, ranked 654th of 841 in California. What it does well: 22% of its land is conserved. Amesti’s July high is 73°F, below both California’s towns (89°F) and U.S. towns (85°F). FEMA rates its natural-hazard risk higher than 97% of U.S. communities, with earthquakes at the top. Pinto Lake County Park, at 213 acres with 2.1 miles of trail, is the biggest park or preserve.
What makes Amesti stand out
Where Amesti beats most towns, and one thing worth knowing.
Amesti has shrunk 24% from 2010 to 2020
3,478 counted in 2010 and 2,637 in 2020.
U.S. Census 2010 & 2020 counts
How Amesti grades
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within California), ordered by how far Amesti is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Levi's Stadium and 69 more within 40 miles
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Amesti. Close and well known come first.
Big draw33 mi Stadium & arenaLevi's Stadium
Big draw32 mi Theme parkCalifornia's Great America
24 mi Zoo & aquariumMonterey Bay Aquarium
27 mi Stadium & arenaSAP Center
26 mi MuseumMonterey Museum of Art
13 mi Theme parkSanta Cruz Beach BoardwalkPhoto credits
Levi's Stadium: Matthew Roth, CC BY-SA 2.0 · California's Great America: Oleg Alexandrov, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Monterey Bay Aquarium: Meij.kobayashi, Public domain · SAP Center: Dicklyon, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Monterey Museum of Art: Sgerbic, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk: Josta Photo, CC BY 2.0
Moving to Amesti: who provides what
Amesti is unincorporated, so Santa Cruz County and regional agencies provide most services.
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 Amesti.
Amesti has a longer frost-free season than nearly all U.S. towns and sends most of its workers to Watsonville and beyond, but it trails even towns with similar incomes on health.
Natural hazards: very high risk in Amesti, mostly earthquakes
Expected losses in Amesti break down as 61% from earthquakes and 19% from drought. One claim on flood insurance has been paid out here since 2016.
FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
Amesti’s schools rank behind 67% of California districts
The Pajaro Valley Unified school district runs its public schools. Its one school is below. Amesti’s only public school teaches 431 students.
| School | Level | Students | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amesti ElementaryLargest public elementary schoolGrades K–5 | Grades K–5 | 431 | – |
NCES · EDFacts · graded within CA on state tests and graduation
Most of Amesti’s workers leave town for work
Amesti has 250 jobs for its 1,168 working residents: even if every job went to a resident, most would still commute out. The average commute takes 39.1 minutes, against 28.7 across California.
Amesti’s median household income comes in at $109,000. Just 4% of the town’s working residents have a job in town. Since 2013, Amesti has lost 33 jobs, to 250 in 2023. The top destinations are Watsonville (18%), Santa Cruz (9%) and San Jose (9%).
| Amesti | California towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average trip to work | 39 minutes | 28 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Median household income | $109,000 | $95,000 | $80,000 |
| Below the poverty line | 13% | 10% | 9.6% |
| Working residents who work in town | 4.2% | 6.6% | 8% |
Where working residents work
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Amesti has set aside 21.6% of its land for conservation
In Amesti, the concentration of trails is 0.7 miles per square mile.
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Pinto Lake County Park | 2.1 mi | 213 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
Amesti: mild winters and pleasant summers
The Watsonville Wtr Wks weather station records that the frost-free season runs about 324 days, longer than in 96% of U.S. towns. July afternoons average 73.3°, cooler than in 99% of U.S. towns; January nights average 40.6°.
Its January low stands at 41°F. Snow is almost unheard of.
Typical low → high °F
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
Amesti is less healthy than 57% of U.S. towns
Against the 7,318 U.S. towns with household incomes like Amesti’s, it is less healthy than 86%, so it trails even them.
In Amesti, 30% of adults have obesity. Two figures for adults here: 26% say their health is fair or poor, 21% worry about having enough food.
| Amesti | California towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yearly checkup (CDC PLACES) | 70% | 72% | 79% |
| No health insurance, 18–64 (CDC PLACES) | 15% | 9% | 8.1% |
| Fair or poor health (CDC PLACES) | 26% | 22% | 19% |
| Food insecurity (CDC PLACES) | 21% | 16% | 14% |
| What stands out | Amesti | CA |
|---|---|---|
| More uninsured adults | 15.1% | 10.6% |
| More older adults who have lost all their teeth | 14.4% | 10.6% |
| More adults facing a utility shut-off | 8.9% | 7.3% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
Homes in Amesti sell for about $1.07M
Just over four in five households live in a home they own in Amesti. The going rate for rent here is $1,660 a month.
| Amesti | California towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Households that own their home | 81% | 64% | 73% |
| Median rent | $1,660 a month | $1,898 a month | $1,185 a month |
Census ACS, 2020–24 · Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
Everything we know about Amesti
Colleges nearby
3 within 15 miles of the center of Amesti
About 7 of every 100 Amesti residents are enrolled in college, about the same as California.
96% of working residents leave Amesti for work
Where Amesti’s working residents go each day. Line width shows the share.
Census LEHD 2023
About Amesti
Place in California, United States
Amesti is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Cruz County, California, United States. The population was 2,637 as of the 2020 United States census. Amesti is named for José Amesti, a Basque who came to California in 1822, and who was the grantee of Rancho Los Corralitos.
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
- Area
- 3.1 sq mi
- Elevation
- 148 ft
Amesti’s neighbors
4 towns share a border with Amesti.
| Town | CA rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amesti | #654 | D | D | — | C | C+ |
| Watsonville | #720 | D− | D | C | C | C |
| Freedom | #347 | C | C− | — | C | B |
| Corralitos | — | — | D− | — | C | A− |
| Interlaken | #625 | D | D | — | C | B− |
Corralitos has fewer than 2,500 residents, so it gets subject grades but no overall grade. Amesti, Freedom, Corralitos and Interlaken report no FBI crime data of their own. Compare Amesti with a neighbor →
Questions about Amesti
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Is Amesti, CA a good place to live?
Amesti grades D overall, better than 7% of U.S. towns and #654 of 841 in California. It grades C+ for health and C for schools. Hazard risk is its weak spot, with a D−.
Is Amesti, CA expensive?
Yes. The typical home is worth about $879,000, 15% above the California typical home. Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades D.