Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Alvin is a solid, middle-of-the-road choice. It grades C overall, 321st of 640 graded towns in Texas, with no subject far below average. Its best mark is incomes: the median household earns $71K. Expect to pay for it: homes are expensive, about $291K for a typical one and 3.5 times the Houston metro’s $82K median household income. Alvin’s January low is 45°F, against 37°F in Texas’ towns and 22°F across U.S. towns. Alvin is home to Alvin Community College.
Where Alvin beats most towns.
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within Texas), ordered by how far Alvin is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
![[Galveston Tribune Supplement for The Alvin Sun] (Galveston, Tex.) Friday, October 29, 1897](https://images.townratings.com/story/17610/108c5837b517fde11876-l.jpg)
Census counts: 261 in 1890, 27,098 in 2020. The archive holds 12 old photos and papers going back to 1897 and 3 maps from 1956 on.
1 place on the National Register of Historic Places.
Who provides power, water and the rest in Alvin, 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 Alvin.
Alvin has a longer frost-free season than nearly all U.S. towns and trades workers with Houston and other neighbors, but it has a long record of flood insurance claims.
14 miles of trail in 8 parks and preserves. The biggest park or preserve is Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge, at 156 acres. The trail density in Alvin is 0.6 miles per square mile.
| Alvin | Texas towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miles of trail per square mile | 0.6 miles per square mile | 0.3 | 0.4 |
| Conserved land | 2.1% | 1.9% | 4.3% |
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge | — | 156 |
| 2. Pearson Park | — | 27 |
| 3. Morgan Park | — | 19 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
Its public schools are run by Alvin ISD. Two of its 14 schools are below, each with why it’s listed.
| School | Level | Students | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| G W Harby J HLargest public middle schoolGrades 6–8 | Grades 6–8 | 781 | C+ |
| Alvin H SLargest public high schoolGrades 9–12 | Grades 9–12 | 2,766 | B |
NCES · EDFacts · graded within TX on state tests and graduation
Alvin beats the Texas average on 0 of 31 CDC measures and trails it on 3. 20% of Alvin adults 18 to 64 have no health insurance.
| Alvin | Texas towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| No health insurance, 18–64 (CDC PLACES) | 20% | 18% | 8.1% |
| Sleep under 7 hours (CDC PLACES) | 43% | 39% | 36% |
| Yearly checkup (CDC PLACES) | 74% | 74% | 79% |
| Fair or poor health (CDC PLACES) | 24% | 24% | 19% |
| What stands out | Alvin | TX |
|---|---|---|
| More adults with COPD | 6.8% | 5.7% |
| More adults who have had cancer | 6.9% | 6.1% |
| More adults sleeping under 7 hours | 42.8% | 38.2% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
1,418 flood insurance claims have been filed here, and 133 properties have flooded more than once.
Expected storm and flood damage is higher than in 68% of U.S. communities. Since 1978, 1,418 flood insurance claims have been paid out in Alvin.
FEMA flood insurance claims · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
The Alvin weather station records that the frost-free season runs about 298 days, longer than in 95% of U.S. towns. January nights average 44.9°, milder than in 97% of U.S. towns; July afternoons average 92.2°.
Alvin has warm winters and hot summers, with plenty of rain. Alvin’s July high is 92°F. Snow is almost unheard of.
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
Alvin has about as many jobs (14,085) as working residents, but only 1,974 people both live and work here.
Most working residents leave Alvin for work: only 15% work in town. 6.7% of workers work from home in Alvin. The top destinations are Houston (30%), Pearland (5%) and League City (3%).
| Alvin | Texas towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average trip to work | 29 minutes | 25 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Working residents who work in town | 15% | 8.3% | 8% |
| Work from home | 6.7% | 9.7% | 11% |
| Below the poverty line | 9.2% | 12% | 9.6% |
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Reported crimes fell from 499 to 404 over the last three FBI years, a drop beyond ordinary year-to-year swings.
FBI crime data, 2025 · crimes reported to police
The typical Alvin home is worth about $291,000, down 1% in a year, close to the Texas typical home.
| Alvin | Texas towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Households that own their home | 61% | 69% | 73% |
| Median rent | $1,215 a month | $1,206 a month | $1,185 a month |
Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Alvin. Close and well known come first.
Big draw21 mi Stadium & arenaReliant Stadium
Big draw24 mi Stadium & arenaDaikin Park
24 mi Stadium & arenaToyota Center
24 mi MuseumRothko Chapel
12 mi MuseumSpace Center Houston
24 mi LandmarkSan Jacinto MonumentReliant Stadium: User eschipul on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Daikin Park: Delaywaves, CC BY 3.0 · Toyota Center: Ed Uthman from Houston, TX, USA, CC BY 2.0 · Rothko Chapel: Unknown, Public domain · Space Center Houston: Shujianyang, CC BY 4.0 · San Jacinto Monument: Tijuana Brass at English Wikipedia, Public domain
4 within 15 miles of the center of Alvin
About 5 of every 100 Alvin residents are enrolled in college, about the same as Texas.
24,236 counted in 2010 and 27,098 in 2020; an estimated 30,115 in 2025.
Growth hasn’t slowed: 11.7% since 2020, after 11.8% in the decade before.
U.S. Census 2010 & 2020 counts · Census Bureau estimate, July 1, 2025
8 notable people were born in Alvin.
City in Texas, United States
Alvin is a city in the U.S. state of Texas within the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land metropolitan area and Brazoria County. As of the 2020 census, Alvin had a population of 27,098. Alvin's claim to fame is Baseball Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan, who moved with his family to the city in 1947 as an infant and lived there until he moved to Round Rock in 2003. The Nolan Ryan Museum is in the Nolan Ryan Foundation and Exhibit Center on the campus of Alvin Community College. Alvin is also the home town of professional pitcher Nathan Eovaldi and professional football quarterback Joe Ferguson.
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
7 towns share a border with Alvin.
| Town | TX rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alvin | #321 | C | C | C+ | B | C |
| Manvel | #227 | C+ | D− | B+ | B | B+ |
| Pearland | #116 | B | D | B− | A− | A− |
| Iowa Colony | #260 | C+ | D− | A− | B | B− |
| Hitchcock | #511 | D | B− | C | C | C |
| Rosharon | — | — | A+ | — | B | C |
| Friendswood | #30 | A− | D | A− | A− | A |
| Hillcrest Village | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Rosharon has fewer than 2,500 residents, so it gets subject grades but no overall grade. Rosharon reports no FBI crime data of its own. Hillcrest Village isn’t graded (fewer than 1,000 residents, or not enough data). Compare Alvin with a neighbor →
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Alvin grades C overall, better than 28% of U.S. towns and #321 of 640 in Texas. It grades C for health, C+ for safety and B for schools. Hazard risk is its weak spot, with a C−.
Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades C.
8 notable people were born here, including Savion Flagg and Joe Ferguson.
