Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 1,678.
Penn Valley’s weakest subject grade is a D for hazard risk. Only 95 of California’s 1,063 towns score lower on history. The biggest park or preserve is Western Gateway Regional Park, at 72 acres. Penn Valley has fewer than 2,500 residents, so it gets subject grades but no overall grade.
Where Penn Valley’s working residents go each day. Line width shows the share.
Census LEHD 2023
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within California), ordered by how far Penn Valley is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Census counts: 1,032 in 1980, 1,593 in 2020. The archive holds 8 old photos and papers going back to 1971 and 4 maps from 1949 on.
Explore the history →Penn Valley is unincorporated, so Nevada 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.
Ordered by what stands out in Penn Valley.
Federal aid has come to Penn Valley households in 5 declared disasters; the latest was in 2023. Storm and flood damage is expected to run higher than in 91% of U.S. communities. Of the losses FEMA expects here, 35% come from wildfires and 31% from inland flooding.
FEMA disaster declarations and aid · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
Two of its 3 schools are below, each with the reason it’s listed. The public schools here belong to the Penn Valley Union Elementary school district. 2 public schools serve Penn Valley, with 288 students in all.
| School | Level | Students | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ready Springs ElementaryLargest public middle schoolGrades 4–8 | Grades 4–8 | 255 | B− |
| Vantage Point CharterLargest public high schoolGrades K–12 | Grades K–12 | 33 | B |
NCES · EDFacts · graded within CA on state tests and graduation
3.9% of working residents work locally in Penn Valley, below both the California town median (6.6%) and the median of U.S. towns (8%). Employers in Penn Valley added 90 jobs between 2013 and 2023, to 328. The median commute is under 21 miles. The top destinations are Grass Valley (22%), Nevada City (6%) and San Francisco (6%).
| Penn Valley | California towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average trip to work | 51 minutes | 28 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Working residents who work in town | 3.9% | 6.6% | 8% |
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
73% of households are owner-occupiers in Penn Valley, where California’s towns sit at 64% and U.S. towns at 73%.
Census ACS, 2020–24 · Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Western Gateway Regional Park | — | 72 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
The share of adults in Penn Valley who have high blood pressure: 37%. This California town does better than the California average on 8 of 32 CDC measures and worse on 9.
| Penn Valley | California towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sleep under 7 hours (CDC PLACES) | 32% | 35% | 36% |
| Depression (CDC PLACES) | 25% | 22% | 23% |
| High blood pressure (CDC PLACES) | 37% | 31% | 35% |
| Frequent physical distress (CDC PLACES) | 16% | 14% | 14% |
| What stands out | Penn Valley | CA |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer uninsured adults | 6.4% | 10.6% |
| Fewer older adults who have lost all their teeth | 7.8% | 10.6% |
| More adults who have had cancer | 10.4% | 6.4% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
None within 15 miles of Penn Valley; the nearest are
About 0 of every 100 Penn Valley residents are enrolled in college, against 8 across California.
Census-designated place in California, United States
Penn Valley is a census-designated place (CDP) in Nevada County, California. The population was 1,593 at the 2020 census, down from 1,621 at the 2010 census. The large Lake Wildwood master-planned community, although a separate CDP, has a Penn Valley postal address, and is sometimes considered part of the general Penn Valley community.
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
That is 5.7 years of the area's median household income ($89,882 across the Truckee-Grass Valley, CA area). Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades C+.