City rankings

Community Wellbeing Score in Washington

Snoqualmie ranks #1 in Washington for community wellbeing score at 82.7.

This ranking orders all 50 qualifying Washington cities by wellbeing score, computed directly from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey and CDC PLACES datasets, never a blended or proprietary score. It is one of 9 single-metric rankings Areazine publishes for Washington, each answering one direct question from official federal data. Compare Snoqualmie's standing against every other Washington city ranked below.

50
Cities ranked
82.7
#1 Snoqualmie
71.8
Lowest, Prairie Ridge

What this Washington ranking shows

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates, the CDC PLACES population-level health analysis, and the CMS Hospital Compare quality data, Areazine ranks U.S. cities across more than 19,000 incorporated places, census-designated places, and consolidated city-county governments. State-level city rankings combine these federal datasets to produce intra-state comparisons across demographics, economics, health outcomes, and hospital quality.

Snoqualmie leads 50 Washington cities at 82.7, while Prairie Ridge sits at the bottom with 71.8 - a total spread of 10.9 on wellbeing score. The top 5 occupy 18% of that range, indicating a tightly-clustered top tier, the leading cities are nearly indistinguishable on this metric.

The median Washington city in this list sits at 76.4, 6.3 behind Snoqualmie. See our methodology for ranking construction, data vintage, refresh cadence, and the federal upstream tables we join, and triangulate via the 8 other Washington rankings below, cities that lead on multiple lenses are the most robust signals.

Top 5 - Community Wellbeing Score

Top 5 Washington cities ranked by wellbeing score
Rank City wellbeing score Population
#1 Snoqualmie 82.7 13K
#2 Mercer Island 82.2 25K
#3 Sammamish 82.1 52K
#4 Woodinville 81.0 12K
#5 Redmond 80.7 61K

Does wellbeing score track with city size?

Community Wellbeing Score vs. population, top 25 ranked cities

Source: U.S. Census Bureau (population), wellbeing score per methodology 2×2 strategic matrix plotting 25 entities by Population (X) and wellbeing score (Y), with a crosshair dividing the plot into four quadrants. Large & strongSmall & strongLarge & weakSmall & weak 050,000100,000150,000 7678808284 Population wellbeing score Community Wellbeing Score vs. population, top 25 ranked cities
Source: U.S. Census Bureau (population), wellbeing score per methodology

Community Wellbeing Score 50

1 Snoqualmie
82.7
2 Mercer Island
82.2
3 Sammamish
82.1
4 Woodinville
81.0
5 Redmond
80.7
6 Cottage Lake
80.6
7 Issaquah
80.5
8 Bainbridge Island
80.2
9 Union Hill-Novelty Hill
79.9
10 Mill Creek East
79.8
11 Newcastle
79.8
12 Bellevue
79.6
13 Lake Forest Park
79.4
14 Bothell West
79.0
15 Maltby
79.0
16 Bothell
78.7
17 Kirkland
78.6
18 Artondale
78.2
19 Kenmore
78.1
20 Edmonds
77.8
21 Maple Valley
77.6
22 Lake Morton-Berrydale
77.6
23 Mukilteo
77.3
24 East Renton Highlands
77.1
25 Silver Firs
76.8
26 Mill Creek
76.4
27 Covington
76.3
28 Seattle
76.0
29 Shoreline
75.8
30 Camas
75.7
31 Fairwood
74.6
32 Camano
74.6
33 Lake Stevens
74.5
34 Enumclaw
74.5
35 Martha Lake
74.4
36 Mountlake Terrace
74.2
37 Anacortes
74.2
38 Lakeland South
74.2
39 Renton
74.1
40 Silverdale
74.1
41 Eastmont
73.9
42 Bonney Lake
73.5
43 Salmon Creek
73.3
44 Tumwater
73.3
45 Poulsbo
73.2
46 Vashon
73.1
47 Lynden
72.3
48 West Richland
72.0
49 University Place
71.8
50 Prairie Ridge
71.8

More Washington Rankings 8

Most Affordable Cities in Washington Most Expensive Cities in Washington Highest Income Cities in Washington Largest Cities in Washington Fastest Growing Cities in Washington Most Educated Cities in Washington Cities with Lowest Unemployment in Washington Youngest Cities in Washington
All cities in Washington → Compare Snoqualmie vs Mercer Island → All comparisons →

Reading this Washington ranking responsibly

Single-metric rankings are useful precisely because they are honest about what they measure. A "highest income" ranking does not tell you that the top-ranked city is the best place to live in Washington; it tells you that, among cities of population ten thousand and above in Washington that have a published median household income field in the most recent American Community Survey five-year estimates, this city has the highest such value. That precise definition matters, because composite "best places" lists from real-estate marketing sites and lifestyle magazines often combine income with subjective weights on schools, walkability, and amenities, producing a score whose components are not disclosed and whose ordering is not reproducible. Areazine's editorial commitment is to keep the underlying field, source, and vintage visible so the reader can audit any rank in this list against the canonical federal record.

Cross-checking against other rankings is a useful sanity test. A city that appears in the top ten on three or more different rankings, for example, highest income, most educated, and lowest poverty, is showing a robust signal across multiple independent dimensions. A city that appears in the top ten on only one ranking and middling on the others is showing a narrower signal, often driven by a single statistical artifact (a small population pulling the per-capita measure, a recent acquisition spike inflating median home value, an outlier survey year). The other nine Washington rankings linked above provide that cross-check at zero extra effort.

Data Sources

Population and economic data from the Census Bureau American Community Survey (2024 5-year estimates). Health data from the CDC PLACES (2023). Ranking computations use U.S. Census Bureau reference geographies. Crime statistics, where referenced, originate from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program (also accessible via the Crime Data Explorer).

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.