Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Easton's standout: it is more walkable than 96% of U.S. towns. Overall it grades C, 841st of 1032 graded towns in Pennsylvania. It has 6 miles of trail. History is its standout character grade: an A+, better than 100% of U.S. towns, with 12 places on the National Register. 17% of the land in Easton is conserved, above both Pennsylvania’s towns (8.2%) and U.S. towns (4.3%). Only 7 of Pennsylvania’s 1,749 towns score higher on history. Easton is home to Lafayette College.
Where Easton beats most towns.
Its 12 National Register listings are more than in 96% of Pennsylvania towns with a listing.
Census counts: 708 in 1790, 28,127 in 2020. The archive holds 12 old photos and papers going back to 1757 and 5 maps from 1890 on.
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within Pennsylvania), ordered by how far Easton is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Easton. Close and well known come first.
18 mi Theme parkDorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom
in town Park & preserveLehigh River
31 mi LakeLake Musconetcong
15 mi Stadium & arenaPPL Center
33 mi Park & preserveDuke Farms
2 mi Theme parkBushkill ParkDorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom: Coasterman1234 at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Lehigh River: The original uploader was Malepheasant at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 2.0 · Lake Musconetcong: Zeete, CC BY-SA 4.0 · PPL Center: Hunter Kahn, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Duke Farms: Ekem, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Bushkill Park: Mr6507, CC BY-SA 4.0
Who provides power, water and the rest in Easton, 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.
Ordered by what stands out in Easton.
Easton has seen reported crime fall by a fifth or more and is mostly renters, but it carries more natural-hazard risk than most of Pennsylvania (mostly inland flooding).
Count the trails in 19 parks and preserves and they come to 5.7 miles. Hugh Moore Park, at 106 acres with 2.2 miles of trail, is the biggest park or preserve. Easton’s density of trails stands at 1.2 miles per square mile, above both the Pennsylvania town median (0.4) and the median of U.S. towns (0.4).
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Hugh Moore Park | 2.2 mi | 106 |
| 2. Heil Park | 0.4 mi | 14 |
| 3. Scott Park | 0.4 mi | 8 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
One of its 4 schools is below, with the reason it’s listed. Easton Area SD runs its public schools. Also worth knowing: 4 public schools serve Easton, with 1,681 students in all.
| School | Level | Students | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paxinosa El SchLargest public elementary schoolGrades K–5 | Grades K–5 | 572 | D |
NCES · EDFacts · graded within PA on state tests and graduation
Only 44.5% of households own their home, against 69.3% across Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania has just over a third of adults 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or more; here it is 28%. Easton has grown 8.2% since 2020, to 30,402 residents in the Census Bureau’s 2025 estimate. Its midpoint age comes in at 31.6 years.
| Easton | Pennsylvania towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median age | 31.6 years | 43.2 years | 40.5 years |
| Aged 65 or older | 11% | 21% | 18% |
| Under 18 | 20% | 20% | 22% |
49% women, 51% men
That’s an even split within the survey’s margin of ±2.1 points. Across Pennsylvania, 50.7% of residents are women. Median age: women 33.2, men 29.8.
| Easton | PA | U.S. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 10 | 9.7% | 10.8% | 11.6% |
| 10 to 17 | 10.1% | 9.7% | 10.3% |
| 18 to 24 | 20% | 9% | 9.1% |
| 25 to 34 | 15.8% | 13% | 13.7% |
| 35 to 44 | 13.5% | 12.6% | 13.2% |
| 45 to 54 | 9.5% | 11.9% | 12.2% |
| 55 to 64 | 10.2% | 13.6% | 12.7% |
| 65 to 74 | 6.5% | 11.4% | 10.2% |
| 75 and older | 4.6% | 8.1% | 7% |
| No diploma | 12% | 7.9% | 10.4% |
| High school | 34.8% | 32.9% | 26% |
| Some college | 17.9% | 15.1% | 19.1% |
| Associate’s | 7.2% | 8.9% | 8.8% |
| Bachelor’s | 17.2% | 20.9% | 21.6% |
| Graduate | 11% | 14.3% | 14.1% |
Census population estimates, 2025 · U.S. Census Bureau · ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates
Homes sold in Easton spent a median 8 days on the market. Values rose 3.8% in the 12 months to September 2026. In Easton, 45% of households are owner-occupiers.
| Easton | Pennsylvania towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Households that own their home | 45% | 78% | 73% |
| Median rent | $1,325 a month | $1,114 a month | $1,185 a month |
Census ACS, 2020–24 · Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
Easton’s typical household income comes in at $69,000. Most people who work leave Easton to do it: just 10% work in town. It had 6,770 jobs in 2023, up 1,145 from 2013. Among residents locally, 16% live below the poverty line.
| Easton | Pennsylvania towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Below the poverty line | 16% | 7.6% | 9.6% |
| Average trip to work | 28 minutes | 26 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Work from home | 15% | 12% | 11% |
| Median household income | $69,000 | $81,000 | $80,000 |
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
In July, afternoons reach 86°; in January, nights fall to 20°, and about 41 inches of snow falls in a winter.
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
FEMA rates its natural-hazard risk higher than 89% of Pennsylvania towns, with expected losses of about $276 per resident a year; that rating is what its C for hazard risk is built on. 233 flood insurance claims have been filed here, and 45 properties have flooded more than once.
In Easton, the natural-hazard score from FEMA is 66 of 100. Flood insurance has paid out on 233 claims here since 1978. Of the losses FEMA expects here, 74% come from inland flooding and 6% from heat waves.
FEMA disaster declarations and aid · FEMA flood insurance claims · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
For adults in Easton, the share who report frequent mental distress is 20%. 21% of adults binge drink here.
| Easton | Pennsylvania towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Binge drink (CDC PLACES) | 21% | 18% | 16% |
| Frequent mental distress (CDC PLACES) | 20% | 16% | 17% |
| Yearly checkup (CDC PLACES) | 75% | 79% | 79% |
| High blood pressure (CDC PLACES) | 29% | 34% | 35% |
| What stands out | Easton | PA |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer adults who have had cancer | 6% | 8.8% |
| Fewer adults with heart disease | 6% | 7.4% |
| More uninsured adults | 11.6% | 5.8% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
Reported crimes fell from 365 to 258 over the last three FBI years, a drop beyond ordinary year-to-year swings.
Pennsylvania has less reported crime than most states, so among its own towns Easton sits closer to the middle. The town’s property offense rate stands at 6.6 per 1,000 residents.
| Easton | Pennsylvania towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crimes per 1,000 (2025) | 1.7 per 1,000 residents | 0.7 | 1.6 |
| Property crimes per 1,000 (2025) | 6.6 per 1,000 residents | 5.7 | 9.9 |
FBI crime data, 2025 · crimes reported to police
7 within 15 miles of the center of Easton
College town 15 of every 100 Easton residents are enrolled in college, against 6 across Pennsylvania.
12 places in Easton on the National Register of Historic Places.
45 notable people were born in Easton.
City in Pennsylvania, United States
Easton is a city in and the county seat of Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city's population was 28,127 as of the 2020 census. Easton straddles the Lehigh River as it flows into the Delaware River, which serves as the city's eastern geographic boundary with Phillipsburg, New Jersey. Easton is the easternmost city in the Lehigh Valley, a region of 731 square miles (1,890 km2) that is Pennsylvania's third-largest and the nation's 68th-largest metropolitan region with 861,889 residents as of the U.S. 2020 census. The smallest of the Valley's three major cities, Easton has less than half the population of Bethlehem and about one-fourth that of Allentown. The greater Easton …
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
10 towns share a border with Easton.
Williams Township next door grades higher for schools (B to Easton’s C) and lower for cost of living (D to C+).
| Town | PA rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easton | #841 | C | C+ | B | C | C+ |
| Palmer Township | #578 | B | C− | B | C | A− |
| Williams Township | #862 | C | D | — | B | B− |
| Forks Township | #569 | B | C− | A | C | A− |
| Glendon | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Wilson | #609 | B | C+ | C+ | B | B− |
| Chestnut Hill | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Lower Saucon Township | #321 | A− | C− | A− | A | B |
Williams Township reports no FBI crime data of its own. Glendon and Chestnut Hill aren’t graded (fewer than 1,000 residents, or not enough data). Compare Easton with a neighbor →
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Easton grades C overall, better than 34% of U.S. towns and #841 of 1032 in Pennsylvania. It grades C+ for health, B for safety and C for schools.
Yes, by national standards. Pennsylvania has less crime than most states, so among its own towns Easton sits nearer the middle.
That is 4.5 years of the area's median household income ($84,587 across the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ 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 C+.
45 notable people were born here, including James McKeen Cattell and Jack Coleman.
_08.jpg){kind=link}
