Find your place.

How matching works

How does the match work?

Each thing you pick reads the town’s grade on it: its standing among every U.S. town of 2,500+ people, the same figure behind its letter. Your match is the weighted average: Nice counts once, Important twice, Must three times. A Must also rules out towns in the bottom 40% on it. Lifestyle presets (warm winters, a ski area, the coast) are rules first: a town has to meet the rule printed under the chips, then it’s ranked.

Why do results show a letter instead of a match score?

The order is your match; the letter is the town’s overall grade, the same one on its town page, with its rank in its state. A town can fit you best and still grade lower overall, when it’s strong on what you picked.

Why are schools compared within a state?

Each state writes its own tests, so a score in one state can’t be compared with another. A town’s Schools grade ranks it against the rest of its own state.

What if a town is missing a grade?

Many towns don’t report crime to the FBI, and small districts have no test results. A missing grade counts as average and the card says so; a town missing more than a third of what you picked is left out. Presets need the grades they rank on.

Does anyone pay to be listed?

No. Every grade comes from public data: the Census, the FBI, state education departments, the CDC, FEMA, the EPA, NOAA, Zillow and OpenStreetMap.

How grades work →

Sources: TownRatings grades (from the Census ACS, FBI crime data, state education departments via EDFacts, CDC PLACES, FEMA National Risk Index, the EPA Smart Location Database, OpenStreetMap, PAD-US and the National Register of Historic Places); NOAA climate normals; Zillow; data/coast (NOAA shoreline); for trips, Census LEHD visitor jobs and OpenSkiMap. Grades updated November 5, 2026.