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Place dossier plate
SheetKY-HOPKINSVILLE-KY · Hopkinsville, KY 31,011 pop · income 16th pct · 21 tracts
Instrument codes from this place’s ACS population and household income, BEA state COL, FBI safety, national income percentile, photo-finish peer city, home-value band, and matched Census-tract book - not a moving recommendation.
Income neighbourhood around Hopkinsville
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Hopkinsville on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Morristown · lowest
44,811
Morristown · lowest
44,811 median HH income
17.9% of the leader · rank #1
Otwell · near
47,422
Otwell · near
47,422 median HH income
19.0% of the leader · rank #2
Georgetown · near
47,423
Georgetown · near
47,423 median HH income
19.0% of the leader · rank #3
Emerson · near
47,426
Emerson · near
47,426 median HH income
19.0% of the leader · rank #4
Hopkinsville · this city
47,428
Hopkinsville · this city
47,428 median HH income
19.0% of the leader · rank #5
Buffalo · near
47,428
Buffalo · near
47,428 median HH income
19.0% of the leader · rank #6
Southlake · highest
250,001
Southlake · highest
250,001 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #7
What this shows Neighbourhood peers only - not a full nationwide city board. Open a near peer when the gap is small; open the poles when the spread is wide.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income, and FBI crime rate
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Hopkinsville on ACS population and median household income
, plus FBI UCR reporting rate when the extract covers this place. Link sets are deduped so each column is a distinct comparison path, not a forecast that peers share a labor market or climate.
Similar population
Nearest out-of-state cities by ACS population. This city: 31,011.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Hopkinsville - the verdict
Nationally, Hopkinsville sits in the 16th percentile for household income and the 16th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
16th
percentile, household income
24th
percentile, home value
10th
percentile, median rent
16th
percentile, safety
📝 How we sourced this
Population, income, and housing-cost figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (B-series tables). Crime data uses FBI UCR; climate uses NOAA Climate Normals; school counts come from NCES Common Core of Data; permits use the Census Building Permits Survey (BPS). See our methodology page for the full ETL pipeline and OMB / FIPS join keys.
Data Snapshot: Hopkinsville, KY
31,011 people live in Hopkinsville, Kentucky - a small city by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Median household income here is $47,428 per year, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 13.8%. Home values in Hopkinsville run a median of $140,200, and the median resident age is 35.1 years. Educational attainment runs 22.2% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 48.8% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 174 residential building permits were authorized in Hopkinsville (Rapid Growth), up 37% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Hopkinsville's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: FBI UCR reporting places total crime at 2951.7 incidents per 100,000 residents, above the national average (voluntary agency reporting, reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). The annual average temperature per NOAA climate normals runs 58.3°F with 51.8 inches of precipitation per year and 5.2 inches of snowfall.
Living costs in Kentucky run below the national norm: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Kentucky scores 90.2 (Well Below Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $984 monthly. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Kentucky's average monthly utility costs around $225 (state average). On FEMA's National Risk Index, this area rates 44.2 out of 100 for natural-hazard exposure (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Hopkinsville's data
How this reading path is ordered
This is not a composite city score. It is a city-specific route through the available public records, ordered for this profile so the page starts with questions the joined data can actually answer. The route here runs from reported crime to climate and hazard context to schools and households to within-city variation to housing and income to work and mobility to comparison shortlist to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Hopkinsville, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles, local building permits.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
Question 1
What can the FBI record say about safety in Hopkinsville?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 2951.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 29% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Treat this as a reporting-rate comparison, not a prediction of personal risk or a neighborhood-level safety grade. Tourism, daytime population, reporting practices, and variation inside the city are not adjusted away. The state rank and same-state peer table are the narrower comparisons available on this page.
What physical conditions frame life in Hopkinsville?
The two sources should not be blended into one comfort or safety score. Use the climate values for baseline conditions and the risk index as a prompt to inspect specific hazards, insurance, and local emergency guidance for a particular address.
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 58.3°F, with 51.8 inches of precipitation and 5.2 inches of annual snowfall. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Kentucky is 44.2 out of 100. Climate normals describe long-run weather; the FEMA score on PlainCities is a state average of county NRI inputs and combines hazards, exposure, vulnerability, and resilience.
What can 21 Census tracts reveal inside Hopkinsville?
PlainCities matches 21 Census tracts to this city.
That layer breaks the citywide income, rent, and home-value medians into smaller Census geographies, which can reveal differences that one municipal median necessarily hides. A tract is a statistical area, not a locally defined neighborhood or a promise about conditions on a particular block. Start with the city profile for the broad comparison, then use the tract layer to test whether the same housing and income pattern is consistent across the city. Large within-city spreads are a reason to avoid treating any citywide median as a universal resident experience.
Which cities make useful reference points for Hopkinsville?
Use the in-state set to hold state policy and broad price conditions more nearly constant. Use the nationwide size set to ask whether cities with a similar resident count produce different housing, income, or commute outcomes. The income set is a third lens, deliberately separate from population matching. The nationwide peer panel below adds a fourth FBI UCR reporting-rate lens, not personal risk.
Within Kentucky, the closest population matches are Nicholasville (31,625 residents, $67,514 income); Elizabethtown (31,870 residents, $56,250 income); Florence (32,334 residents, $68,508 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are North Royalton, OH (31,013 residents); Northport, AL (30,991 residents); Morristown, TN (30,983 residents). A third, income-matched reference set of 6 out-of-state cities sits in the income neighbourhood chart near the Place Dossier plate. These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
These joined records add useful context, but they do not need another full-size panel. Each remains a separate measure with its own geography and source boundary.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Hopkinsville?
The city has a broader matched school footprint, but count alone does not describe performance, capacity, program availability, or attendance boundaries. This profile deliberately avoids converting it into an unsupported family-friendliness score.
The NCES join finds 14 public schools within the city match. 22.2% of adults age 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher in the ACS estimate. These measures answer different questions: the school count describes local institutions, while adult attainment describes residents and cannot be used as a school-quality rating.
Poverty estimate
13.8%
Bachelor's degree+
22.2%
Matched public schools
14
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
How far does income reach against housing in Hopkinsville?
This is a citywide price-to-income reference, not a mortgage-affordability test; it does not include interest rates, taxes, insurance, household size, or an individual buyer's down payment. Income and home value move within the same broad scale here. The useful next check is not a generic affordability label, but whether similar-size cities offer a materially different income, housing, or commute trade-off.
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.0 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 13.8%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.0×
Home value
$140,200
Household income
$47,428
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
What does the journey to work look like in Hopkinsville?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 85.5%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. The profile is strongly car-oriented, so a relocation comparison should put trip distance, vehicle access, and household fuel costs ahead of a citywide commute average. The same-state peer links offer a more relevant benchmark than a national label.
Drive alone
85.5%
Work from home
3.2%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 11,968 workers age 16+.
Is Hopkinsville growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -760 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -2.4% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 174 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Recent estimates point downward. A falling count can reflect migration, household size, annexation boundaries, or estimation noise, so it is a prompt to inspect the full series rather than a claim about local economic health.
2020 estimate
31,171
2025 estimate
30,411
Period change
-2.4%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Comparative score against U.S. cities with population of 1,000 or more on Census ACS medians
(income, poverty, bachelor's share, cost of living) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when
published. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability
rating, not a recommendation to move, buy, or pick a "best" city. Missing inputs drop out
and redistribute weight.
How it is calculated.
Cost of living A
90.2 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Bachelor's+ share D
22.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
13.8%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Violent crime F
446 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Household income F
$47,428
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Hopkinsville profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 85/100 (A) · 90.2 index
Bachelor's+ share: 41/100 (D) · 22.2%
Poverty rate: 25/100 (F) · 13.8%
Violent crime: 19/100 (F) · 446 /100k
Household income: 17/100 (F) · $47,428
Where Hopkinsville sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Hopkinsville's median home value and FBI crime rate plotted with similar-size and
same-state peers (padded with large cities when the peer set is thin). The second
read: pricey does not always mean safer, check which quadrant this city lands in.
Census ACS median home value vs FBI UCR crime rate - Hopkinsville highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Hopkinsville, KY (this city): home $140,200, crime 2,952/100k
Morristown, TN : home $155,700, crime 3,236/100k
Southlake, TX : home $957,500, crime 1,032/100k
Alamogordo, NM : home $163,600, crime 3,181/100k
Bella Vista, AR : home $262,400, crime 691/100k
Nicholasville, KY : home $210,700, crime 1,610/100k
Elizabethtown, KY : home $223,200, crime 835/100k
Florence, KY : home $196,200, crime 3,445/100k
Independence, KY : home $240,500, crime 343/100k
Jeffersontown, KY : home $236,800, crime 2,381/100k
Frankfort, KY : home $171,600, crime 1,846/100k
How does Hopkinsville compare to other US cities?
Hopkinsville measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income16% higher than other cities
Home value24% pricier than other cities
Median rent10% pricier than other cities
Safety16% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
National percentiles can mask local variation. Looking only at Kentucky, Hopkinsville ranks #169 of 181 Kentucky cities by lowest crime rate - a narrower, more locally useful cut than the national comparison above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Hopkinsville against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Kentucky only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Kentucky-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Hopkinsville near the bottom of Kentucky's cities
Among the 520 Kentucky cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Hopkinsville ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Hopkinsville only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#312 of 485
36th percentile in Kentucky
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 520
0th percentile in Kentucky
Median Home Value
#256 of 484
47th percentile in Kentucky
Poverty Rate
#217 of 519
58th percentile in Kentucky
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#210 of 520
60th percentile in Kentucky
How in-state ranks are ordered
Ranked by raw value (highest first); a higher rank is not automatically "better" for every measure, see each metric's own context above. This is a comparison within Kentucky only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
16th percentile nationally for median household income · 16th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Hopkinsville's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Hopkinsville's percentile rank on 3 favorable-direction measures (income, affordability, safety) vs. every tracked US city -- higher on every axis is more favorable. Not a composite quality score, just the arithmetic mean of the axes shown.
How Hopkinsville's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$140,200Among the most affordablemore affordable than 76% of 15,600 US cities
Show national distribution
Each bar is a $25K-wide band; taller bars hold more US cities. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year Estimates · 2023
Hopkinsville's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.0×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#6,450 of 15,516
More affordable than 58% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#839 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.0×, Hopkinsville sits in the affordable band:
national rank #6,450 of 15,516 and #839 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
The multiple is comparatively compact among tracked cities, but a low ratio can still coexist with slow demand or household-level hardship.
How this ratio is calculated
Ratio = Census ACS 2023 median home value ÷ median household income for cities with both fields and population ≥ 1,000.
Rank 1 = lowest ratio (most compact). Bands match the fleet affordability thresholds used on guides (<3.0 / 3.0–5.0 / >5.0).
This is not a mortgage payment estimate and does not include rates, taxes, insurance, or down payment.
Income distribution context
$47,428Hopkinsville, KY median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Hopkinsville, KY median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Hopkinsville, KY.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)22.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)13.8%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)48.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
31,011
Median Income
$47,428
Median Home Value
$140,200
Median Age
35.1
Poverty Rate
13.8%
Labor force participation
48.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
22.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
2951.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
446.3
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2505.4
per 100,000 residents
Crime reporting caveat
Reflects incidents reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program — agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies by jurisdiction and year, so this reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score. Not adjusted for tourism, commuter, or daytime population.
Climate
Avg Temperature
58.3°F
Annual Precipitation
51.8"
Annual Snowfall
5.2"
Schools
Total Schools
14
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Hopkinsville's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
31,171 residents
2021
30,979 residents
2022
30,844 residents
2023
30,867 residents
2024
30,861 residents
2025
30,411 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📈 Rapid Growth
Total Permits (2024)
174
housing units authorized
Single-Family
96
detached homes
Multifamily
78
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
5.6
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
127
22
105
$15.6M
2020
55
51
4
$6.6M
2021
52
46
6
$6.8M
2022
57
53
4
$10.7M
2023
120
62
58
$15.1M
2024
174
96
78
$12.9M
Permit volume increased 37% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
85.5%
Carpool
8.9%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.8%
Work from Home
3.2%
Other
1.6%
Based on 11,968 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Kentucky statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $225
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Kentucky at $225 (electricity about $115 , water and sewer about $40 ).
These are Kentucky statewide averages, not a meter reading for Hopkinsville. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Kentucky's BEA cost-of-living index is 90.2 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Hopkinsville is $984/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Kentucky statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 44.2 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Kentucky statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Hopkinsville sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Hopkinsville compares to similar-size Kentucky cities
Same-state peer method
Closest same-state population matches, not geographic neighbors. Population + median household income come from Census Bureau ACS 5-year B01001 and B19013.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year 2023, FBI UCR, NOAA Climate Normals, NCES CCD, Census BPS 2024, Census ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.