How are the numbers made?
Summary: Every count on this site is our estimate from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey from 2020 through 2024. You select what you're looking for; we count how many matching people live in each of 387 US metro areas, and rank the 193 with at least 250,000 people and a large enough sample to make a reliable estimate. We use additional information from nationally-recognized datasets and weigh it all together to find your best city match.
Where does the data come from?
- How many people: Data comes from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, which includes about 3.5 million households a year, from 2020–2024. Metro areas follow Census definitions: "San Francisco" means the whole metro area, not just the city limits.
- City stats: Data come from nationally-recognized sources, updated when that source publishes:
| Stat | Source |
|---|---|
| Rent | HUD 50th percentile rent estimates, FY2027 |
| Everyday prices | Bureau of Economic Analysis price levels |
| Places to go out | Census Bureau business data |
| Getting around on foot | EPA's national walkability index |
| Nice days a year | NOAA daily weather-station records, 1991–2020 |
| Students | Federal education data (IPEDS) |
| Political lean | MIT Election Data and Science Lab |
| Reported crime | FBI Crime Data Explorer |
How is the count of matches calculated?
Everyone in a metro area who fits your search: sex, age range, never married or previously married, and any education, income, race or ethnicity filters you set. This count is the dating pool, which by default makes up the biggest part of your overall score.
How is compatibility calculated?
Compatibility is how closely the people who match your search resemble the people who actually pair with someone like you, on age, education, and background, where 100 is the US average.
The compatibility figure is built from real couples in the Census Bureau's household survey, using each partner's age, education, and race/ethnicity. Across the whole country we measure how often each age gap, education pairing, and racial pairing actually occurs. That pattern, adjusted for each city's own couples, is then applied to the single people who match your search in each city, so the figure says how closely they resemble the people who typically pair with someone of your sex, age, education, and background. It is an aggregate pattern from recent pairings, not a prediction about any one person, and 100 is the US average for your search.
For a same-sex search, the age gaps and the education pairings come from same-sex couples in the same survey. Racial and ethnic pairings aren't used, since data on this is too sparse for reliable estimates across cities.
How is the overall score calculated?
You set what matters. The slider balances between pool size and compatibility. Four controls (cost of living, social life, student life, weather) set how much each stat counts. Each stat is compared across cities, weighted your way, and summed to a score out of 100.
Which cities are included?
The narrower your search, the harder it becomes to make reliable estimates about the number of matches you can find in a given city, especially for less populated cities. When estimates become too noisy, we leave cities out of the rankings and report how many were excluded. To see the full range of cities, try expanding your search to include more people.
Every measure, every city
The full list of what this site measures in plain English, with links to city rankings, lives on one page: What we measure.