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Place dossier plate
SheetVA-CULPEPER-VA · Culpeper, VA 20,437 pop · income 72nd pct · 10 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 Culpeper
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Culpeper on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Painesville · lowest
50,455
Painesville · lowest
50,455 median HH income
29.8% of the leader · rank #1
Ocean Pines · near
91,400
Ocean Pines · near
91,400 median HH income
53.9% of the leader · rank #2
Culpeper · this city
91,429
Culpeper · this city
91,429 median HH income
53.9% of the leader · rank #3
Herald · near
91,429
Herald · near
91,429 median HH income
53.9% of the leader · rank #4
Fisher · near
91,438
Fisher · near
91,438 median HH income
53.9% of the leader · rank #5
Clarks Summit · near
91,442
Clarks Summit · near
91,442 median HH income
53.9% of the leader · rank #6
Buckhall · highest
169,591
Buckhall · highest
169,591 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 Culpeper 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: 20,437.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Culpeper - the verdict
Culpeper ranks in the 72nd percentile for household income and the 37th percentile for safety nationally, out of every US city with at least 1,000 residents. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
72nd
percentile, household income
74th
percentile, home value
62nd
percentile, median rent
37th
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: Culpeper, VA
Virginia's Culpeper is a small city, with 20,437 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Households in Culpeper report a median income of $91,429 per year, above the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 11.3%. Culpeper's housing stock carries a median value of $366,300, and the median resident age is 32.9 years. 30.2% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 67.9% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Culpeper reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1798.0 in FBI UCR data, below the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Virginia tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Virginia scores 101.1 (Near Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in this state is $1,369 per month. EIA 2023 residential energy data puts Virginia's average monthly utility costs around $235 (state average). FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 33.3 out of 100 (Very Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Culpeper'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 schools and households to reported crime to work and mobility to housing and income to comparison shortlist to population change to within-city variation; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Culpeper, city-specific coverage includes annual population history, commute-mode shares, matched public-school count, FBI reported-crime rates, within-city Census tract profiles.
No matched row is reported here for local building permits; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
What does the education layer cover for Culpeper?
The NCES join finds 11 public schools within the city match. 30.2% 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.
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.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Culpeper?
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.
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1798.0 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 21% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Which cities make useful reference points for Culpeper?
Within Virginia, the closest population matches are Buckhall (20,447 residents, $169,591 income); Meadowbrook (20,383 residents, $79,750 income); Merrifield (20,549 residents, $136,173 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Painesville, OH (20,453 residents); Frankfort, IL (20,417 residents); Sidney, OH (20,457 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.
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.
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.
PlainCities matches 10 Census tracts to this city.
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.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Culpeper?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. No single mode completely explains the work trip here. The mix is more useful than a one-number commute grade, especially when comparing places where transit, walking, and remote work divide the non-driving share differently.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 68.5%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Public transit
1.2%
Work from home
8.8%
Drive alone
68.5%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 9,930 workers age 16+.
How far does income reach against housing in Culpeper?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 4.0 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 11.3%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
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. Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median. That flags a question for comparison, not a verdict: tenure, household composition, financing costs, and the age of the ACS estimate can all change what a resident actually pays.
Household income
$91,429
Home value
$366,300
Value / income
4.0×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is Culpeper growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Recent estimates point upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,908 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +9.5% change. No comparable local building-permit series is available here, so population change should not be read as a housing-supply measure. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Period change
+9.5%
2025 estimate
22,074
2020 estimate
20,166
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Above median income · poverty 11.3% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
101.1 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Virginia average
C-
City profile score · Culpeper, VA
53/100
5 published dimensions · ACS/FBI 2023
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.
Household income B
$91,429
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime B-
122 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share C
30.2%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
11.3%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Cost of living F
101.1 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Culpeper profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 71/100 (B) · $91,429
Violent crime: 65/100 (B-) · 122 /100k
Bachelor's+ share: 58/100 (C) · 30.2%
Poverty rate: 35/100 (F) · 11.3%
Cost of living: 35/100 (F) · 101.1 index
Where Culpeper sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Culpeper'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 - Culpeper highlighted among 27 peers.Read the chart values
Culpeper, VA (this city): home $366,300, crime 1,798/100k
Painesville, OH : home $151,400, crime 768/100k
Frankfort, IL : home $461,600, crime 701/100k
Sidney, OH : home $159,300, crime 2,393/100k
Lomita, CA : home $792,100, crime 2,141/100k
Golden, CO : home $790,500, crime 2,511/100k
Westbrook, ME : home $341,800, crime 1,330/100k
New York, NY : home $751,700, crime 3,039/100k
Los Angeles, CA : home $879,500, crime 2,212/100k
Chicago, IL : home $315,200, crime 4,012/100k
Houston, TX : home $253,400, crime 5,442/100k
Phoenix, AZ : home $381,900, crime 3,125/100k
Philadelphia, PA : home $232,400, crime 5,457/100k
San Antonio, TX : home $219,700, crime 5,218/100k
San Diego, CA : home $848,500, crime 2,082/100k
Dallas, TX : home $295,300, crime 4,010/100k
San Jose, CA : home $1,187,800, crime 3,195/100k
Austin, TX : home $512,700, crime 3,709/100k
Fort Worth, TX : home $277,300, crime 3,158/100k
Columbus, OH : home $234,500, crime 3,088/100k
Indianapolis, IN : home $207,000, crime 4,214/100k
San Francisco, CA : home $1,380,500, crime 4,526/100k
Seattle, WA : home $912,100, crime 5,783/100k
Denver, CO : home $586,700, crime 5,755/100k
Oklahoma City, OK : home $215,100, crime 3,570/100k
El Paso, TX : home $171,700, crime 1,772/100k
Washington, DC : home $724,600, crime 4,514/100k
How does Culpeper compare to other US cities?
Culpeper measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income72% higher than other cities
Home value74% pricier than other cities
Median rent62% pricier than other cities
Safety37% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
A national percentile can hide a lot of local variation: narrowed to Virginia alone, Culpeper ranks #59 of 117 Virginia cities by lowest crime rate - a different, more locally useful comparison than stacking it against the entire country.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Culpeper against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Virginia only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Virginia-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Culpeper near the bottom of Virginia's cities
Among the 619 Virginia cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Culpeper ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Culpeper only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#205 of 558
63rd percentile in Virginia
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 619
0th percentile in Virginia
Median Home Value
#180 of 567
68th percentile in Virginia
Poverty Rate
#170 of 616
72nd percentile in Virginia
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#278 of 618
55th percentile in Virginia
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 Virginia only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
72nd percentile nationally for median household income · 37th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Culpeper's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Culpeper'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 Culpeper's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$366,30026th percentilemore affordable than 26% 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
Culpeper's home-value-to-income ratio: 4.0×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#10,726 of 15,516
More affordable than 31% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,993 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 4.0×, Culpeper sits in the moderate band:
national rank #10,726 of 15,516 and #1,993 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
Income and home value move in the same broad scale; check same-state peers before treating the multiple as an advantage or a warning.
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
$91,429Culpeper, VA median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Culpeper, VA median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Culpeper, VA.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)30.2%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)11.3%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)67.9%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
20,437
Median Income
$91,429
Median Home Value
$366,300
Median Age
32.9
Poverty Rate
11.3%
Labor force participation
67.9%
Bachelor's Degree+
30.2%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1798.0
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
122.1
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1675.9
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.
Schools
Total Schools
11
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Culpeper's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
20,166 residents
2021
20,562 residents
2022
20,772 residents
2023
21,138 residents
2024
21,719 residents
2025
22,074 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
68.5%
Carpool
15.7%
Public Transit
1.2%
Walk
3.1%
Work from Home
8.8%
Other
2.7%
Based on 9,930 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Virginia statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $235
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Virginia at $235 (electricity about $115 , water and sewer about $50 ).
These are Virginia statewide averages, not a meter reading for Culpeper. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Virginia's BEA cost-of-living index is 101.1 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Culpeper is $1,369/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Virginia statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 33.3 / 100 (Very Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Virginia statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Culpeper sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Culpeper compares to similar-size Virginia 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, NCES CCD, 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.