Pontoon BeachIL
A town of 5,887, incorporated in 1962.
Is Pontoon Beach a good place to live?
Pontoon Beach grades D− overall, ranked 759th of 767 in Illinois, mostly because of schools and health. Its public schools trail 98% of Illinois towns on state tests and graduation. Residents are less healthy than 79% of U.S. towns on CDC estimates. In its favor, it has 6 miles of trail. 24% of the land in Pontoon Beach is conserved, where Illinois’ towns sit at 3.6% and U.S. towns at 4.3%. Only 57 of Illinois’ 1,285 towns score lower on hazard risk. The biggest place to walk is Horseshoe Lake State Park, 1,589 acres with 4.3 miles of trail.
How Pontoon Beach grades
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within Illinois), ordered by how far Pontoon Beach is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Cahokia and 53 more within 40 miles
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Pontoon Beach. Close and well known come first.
Big draw5 mi State parkCahokia
Big draw10 mi Stadium & arenaThe Dome at America's Center
4 mi LandmarkMonks Mound
10 mi Stadium & arenaBusch Stadium
9 mi National ParkGateway Arch National Park2.2M visitors a year
11 mi Stadium & arenaEnterprise CenterPhoto credits
Cahokia: Thank You (24 Millions ) views, CC BY 2.0 · The Dome at America's Center: Paul Sableman, CC BY 2.0 · Monks Mound: Skubasteve834, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Busch Stadium: Lee Ann Ratledge, CC BY 4.0 · Gateway Arch National Park: Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Enterprise Center: Haaron755, CC BY-SA 3.0
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Moving to Pontoon Beach: who provides what
Who provides power, water and the rest in Pontoon Beach, and how to reach them.
EPA SDWIS (Oct 9, 2026) · HIFLD + EIA-861 2025 · Census 2020 ZCTAs · NCES 2024–25 · registration: vote.gov, updated Sep 12, 2025.
The data
Ordered by what stands out in Pontoon Beach.
Pontoon Beach carries more natural-hazard risk than most of Illinois (mostly inland flooding), but it has seen reported crime rise by a third or more and has poverty well above the Illinois rate.
24.4% of the land in Pontoon Beach is protected from building
Count the trails in 1 park or preserve and they come to 5.5 miles. Pontoon Beach’s trail density stands at 0.5 miles per square mile, against 0.3 in Illinois’ towns and 0.4 across U.S. towns.
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Horseshoe Lake State Park | 4.3 mi | 1,589 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
More of Pontoon Beach’s adults report frequent mental distress than in the typical Illinois or U.S. town
For adults in Pontoon Beach, the share who feel lonely is 36%. In Pontoon Beach, 18% of adults smoke cigarettes, and 42% have obesity.
| Pontoon Beach | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frequent mental distress (CDC PLACES) | 20% | 17% | 17% |
| Smoke cigarettes (CDC PLACES) | 18% | 13% | 14% |
| Obesity (CDC PLACES) | 42% | 37% | 35% |
| Frequent physical distress (CDC PLACES) | 16% | 13% | 14% |
| What stands out | Pontoon Beach | IL |
|---|---|---|
| More smokers | 17.6% | 12.1% |
| More adults with COPD | 9% | 6.3% |
| More older adults who have lost all their teeth | 14.3% | 10.3% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
Top of a very high hazard risk in Pontoon Beach: inland flooding
FEMA rates its natural-hazard risk higher than 94% of Illinois towns; that rating is what its D for hazard risk is built on.
Expected losses in Pontoon Beach break down as 52% from inland flooding and 18% from earthquakes. Its FEMA hazard score stands at 82 of 100. It has had 29 paid flood insurance claims since 1995.
FEMA flood insurance claims · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
The typical home in Pontoon Beach: about $192K
The median property tax bill is $2,386, against $5,298 across Illinois, another input to its cost-of-living grade.
Values rose 5% in the 12 months to September 2026. Homes sold in Pontoon Beach spent a median 38 days on the market. In Pontoon Beach, the typical rent is $1,277 a month.
| Pontoon Beach | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Households that own their home | 70% | 75% | 73% |
| Median rent | $1,277 a month | $1,128 a month | $1,185 a month |
Typical home value
Census ACS, 2020–24 · Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
More crime per resident in Pontoon Beach than in 67% of U.S. towns
Reported crimes rose from 84 to 112 over the last three FBI years, a rise beyond ordinary year-to-year swings.
Pontoon Beach’s level of property crime comes in at 14.4 per 1,000 residents. Its violent crime rate stands at 4.8 per 1,000 residents.
| Pontoon Beach | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crimes per 1,000 (2025) | 4.8 per 1,000 residents | 1 | 1.6 |
| Property crimes per 1,000 (2025) | 14.4 per 1,000 residents | 7.9 | 9.9 |
Violent crime per 1,000 residents
Property crime per 1,000 residents
FBI crime data, 2025 · crimes reported to police
Pontoon Beach stands out in Illinois and nationally: a typical July afternoon there is hotter
Pontoon Beach has chilly winters and warm summers. July afternoons reach 89°, January nights drop to 23° and about 11 inches of snow falls in a winter.
Typical low → high °F
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
Pontoon Beach has 1.3 jobs for every working resident, and 3,128 people commute in
Jobs based here grew from 2,186 in 2013 to 3,220.
In Pontoon Beach, the median household income is $63,000. Only 4% of working residents stay in Pontoon Beach for work; the rest commute out. 22% of Pontoon Beach residents live below the poverty line. Between 2013 and 2023, jobs locally rose by 1,034, to 3,220.
| Pontoon Beach | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Below the poverty line | 22% | 8.4% | 9.6% |
| Work from home | 6.2% | 11% | 11% |
| Average trip to work | 23 minutes | 26 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Median household income | $63,000 | $83,000 | $80,000 |
Where working residents work
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Everything we know about Pontoon Beach
Colleges nearby
12 within 15 miles of the center of Pontoon Beach
About 6 of every 100 Pontoon Beach residents are enrolled in college, about the same as Illinois.
About Pontoon Beach
Village in Illinois, United States
Pontoon Beach is a village in Madison County, Illinois, United States. The population was 5,876 at the 2020 census. It is part of the St. Louis metropolitan area.
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
- Area
- 13 sq mi
Pontoon Beach’s neighbors
10 towns share a border with Pontoon Beach.
All 5 graded towns on its borders grade higher than its D−; Nameoki Township (D) is closest. Edwardsville next door grades higher for schools (A− to Pontoon Beach’s D−) and lower for cost of living (C− to B−).
| Town | IL rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pontoon Beach | #759 | D− | B− | C | D− | C− |
| Granite City · Granite City Township | #715 | D | A | D | D− | C− |
| Collinsville | #477 | B− | B+ | C+ | C+ | B |
| Mitchell | — | — | A | — | D− | D |
| Nameoki Township | #731 | D | B+ | — | D− | C− |
| Edwardsville | #105 | A | C− | A− | A− | A− |
| Glen Carbon | #236 | A− | C+ | B | A− | A |
| Madison | #756 | D− | A− | — | D− | D |
Mitchell has fewer than 2,500 residents, so it gets subject grades but no overall grade. Mitchell, Nameoki Township and Madison report no FBI crime data of their own. Granite City Township and Granite City are one community, graded once. Compare Pontoon Beach with a neighbor →
Questions about Pontoon Beach
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Is Pontoon Beach, IL a good place to live?
Pontoon Beach grades D− overall, better than 4% of U.S. towns and #759 of 767 in Illinois. It grades C− for health, C for safety and D− for schools. Schools is its weak spot, with a D−.
Is Pontoon Beach, IL expensive?
That is 2.4 years of the area's median household income ($80,196 across the St. Louis, MO-IL metro area). Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades B−.