The Town Files

About the data

The Town Files builds a page for every American town from public data. No numbers are typed in by hand, and every page lists its sources.

What counts as a town

Census incorporated places (cities, towns, villages, boroughs), Census-designated places, and in New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, the towns and townships that act as local governments. Pages are live for towns with 2,500 or more people; smaller towns are coming.

How comparisons work

"Typical town" means the median of towns in the same state with at least 500 people. Percentiles compare a town with that same group: the 90th percentile means better than 90% of them. Tract-level data is combined into towns by weighting each Census tract by how many of the town's 2020 residents live in it.

Weather and storms

Temperatures, precipitation and snow are NOAA's 1991–2020 normals from the nearest station with the data. Tornado counts use NOAA Storm Events tornado tracks (start to end point) that pass within 10 miles of the town center, 1950 to 2026. Hail counts use reports of 1-inch hail or larger within 10 miles.

Sources