Prairie HeightsWA
Public schools that outperform most of Washington. In Washington, this town has 4,998 residents.
Is Prairie Heights a good place to live?
Prairie Heights’s grades pull in different directions. Where it does best is schools: its schools rank ahead of 84% of Washington towns. It also does well on incomes (A−): the median household earns $131K. What counts against it is hazard risk — FEMA rates its natural-hazard risk higher than 56% of U.S. communities, with earthquakes at the top. Cost of living is weaker too (C+) — the typical home is worth about $500K, 4.3 years of the Seattle metro’s $115K median household income. The overall grade comes out at B, better than 62% of U.S. towns. In the ranking it comes 79th of 285 in Washington.
Figures: schools, state test and graduation results · incomes, Census ACS, 2020–24 · FEMA National Risk Index · home values, Zillow.
What makes Prairie Heights stand out
Where Prairie Heights beats most towns.
99% of working residents leave Prairie Heights for work
Where Prairie Heights’s working residents go each day. Line width shows the share.
Census LEHD 2023
How Prairie Heights grades
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within Washington), ordered by how far Prairie Heights is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Space Needle and 129 more within 40 miles
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Prairie Heights. Close and well known come first.
Big draw35 mi LookoutSpace Needle
Big draw33 mi Stadium & arenaLumen Field
Big draw35 mi Stadium & arenaClimate Pledge Arena
12 mi National ParkMount Rainier National Park1.6M visitors a year
32 mi Stadium & arenaT-Mobile Park
13 mi Theme parkWild Waves Theme ParkPhoto credits
Space Needle: Another Believer, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Lumen Field: "Smart Destinations", GoSeattleCard.com, and Go Seattle Card Blog, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Climate Pledge Arena: Sea Cow, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Mount Rainier National Park: Ricardo Martins from Gent, Belgium, CC BY 2.0 · T-Mobile Park: MyName (Cacophony), CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wild Waves Theme Park: Jessica Spengler from Hove, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0
Moving to Prairie Heights: who provides what
Prairie Heights is unincorporated, so Pierce 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 Sep 30, 2026.
The data
Ordered by what stands out in Prairie Heights.
Prairie Heights has cooler summers than nearly all U.S. towns, sends most of its workers to Seattle and beyond and is healthy by national standards but behind most towns in Washington.
Prairie Heights earns an A− for schools
The largest public high school is White River High School, with 1,340 students. Below: Two of its 3 schools, each with why it was picked. Its public schools are run by the White River School District.
| School | Level | Students | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foothills ElementaryLargest public elementary schoolGrades 1–5 | Grades 1–5 | 470 | – |
| White River High SchoolLargest public high schoolGrades 9–12 | Grades 9–12 | 1,340 | – |
NCES · EDFacts · graded within WA on state tests and graduation
Most working residents commute out of Prairie Heights
Prairie Heights has 128 jobs for its 2,223 working residents: even if every job went to a resident, most would still commute out.
Prairie Heights: 0.5% of working residents work locally, where Washington’s towns sit at 5% and U.S. towns at 8%. Since 2013, Prairie Heights has added 43 jobs, to 128 in 2023. In Prairie Heights, the typical journey to work is 32 minutes. The median commute is under 17 miles.
| Prairie Heights | Washington towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $131,000 | $98,000 | $80,000 |
| Average trip to work | 32 minutes | 27 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Below the poverty line | 3.2% | 7.9% | 9.6% |
| Work from home | 9% | 15% | 11% |
Where working residents work
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Prairie Heights: mild winters and pleasant summers
July afternoons average 76.7°, cooler than in 97% of U.S. towns; January nights average 34.4°.
Prairie Heights’ January low comes in at 34°F. About 4 inches of snow falls in a winter.
| Prairie Heights | Washington towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| July high | 77°F | 77°F | 85°F |
| January low | 34°F | 35°F | 22°F |
Typical low → high °F
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
Top of a moderate hazard risk in Prairie Heights: earthquakes
FEMA puts 39% of Prairie Heights’s expected hazard losses down to earthquakes, and 30% to inland flooding.
FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
Health in Prairie Heights trails 50% of U.S. towns
Within Washington it is less healthy than 82% of the 285 graded towns: Washington sets a high bar. Against the 4,470 U.S. towns with household incomes like Prairie Heights’s, it is less healthy than 92%, so it trails even them.
Among adults in Prairie Heights, 14% smoke cigarettes. Prairie Heights: 29% of adults have been diagnosed with depression, against 26% in Washington’s towns and 23% across U.S. towns. 71% of adults locally had a checkup this year; 20% report frequent mental distress.
| Prairie Heights | Washington towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Depression (CDC PLACES) | 29% | 26% | 23% |
| Yearly checkup (CDC PLACES) | 71% | 71% | 79% |
| Frequent mental distress (CDC PLACES) | 20% | 17% | 17% |
| Obesity (CDC PLACES) | 39% | 33% | 35% |
| What stands out | Prairie Heights | WA |
|---|---|---|
| More smokers | 13.9% | 10.1% |
| More adults with obesity | 39% | 30.6% |
| More adults with COPD | 6.3% | 5.1% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
Prairie Heights stands out in Washington and nationally: a larger share of its households live in a home they own
In Prairie Heights, the median rent is $1,828 a month.
| Prairie Heights | Washington towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Households that own their home | 96% | 70% | 73% |
| Median rent | $1,828 a month | $1,737 a month | $1,185 a month |
Census ACS, 2020–24 · Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
Everything we know about Prairie Heights
Colleges nearby
1 within 15 miles of the center of Prairie Heights
About 8 of every 100 Prairie Heights residents are enrolled in college, against 6 across Washington.
About Prairie Heights
CDP in Washington, United States
Prairie Heights is a census-designated place (CDP) located in Pierce County, Washington. As of the 2020 census, Prairie Heights had a population of 4,561.
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
- Area
- 3.7 sq mi
- Elevation
- 666 ft
- Area code
- 360
Prairie Heights’s neighbors
2 towns share a border with Prairie Heights.
| Town | WA rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prairie Heights | #79 | B | C+ | — | A− | B− |
| Prairie Ridge | #77 | B | C | — | A | B+ |
| Bonney Lake | #75 | B | C− | C+ | A | B+ |
Prairie Heights and Prairie Ridge report no FBI crime data of their own. Compare Prairie Heights with a neighbor →
Questions about Prairie Heights
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Is Prairie Heights, WA a good place to live?
By most measures, yes. Prairie Heights grades B overall, better than 62% of U.S. towns and #79 of 285 in Washington. It grades B− for health and A− for schools. Hazard risk is its weak spot, with a C−.
Is Prairie Heights, WA expensive?
The typical home is worth about $500,000, 15% below the Washington typical home. Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades C+.