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Data on this report is based on areas within the legal city boundary, outlined in black on the map. Any additional neighborhoods shown on the map are associated with the city by name and are included for reference only.

Ames, IA
Real Estate & Demographic Data






Ames profile


Living in Ames



Ames is a larger medium-sized city located in the state of Iowa. With a population of 66,950 people and 19 constituent neighborhoods, Ames is the ninth largest community in Iowa.

Ames real estate is some of the most expensive in Iowa, although Ames house values don't compare to the most expensive real estate in the U.S.

And if you like science, one thing you'll find is that Ames has lots of scientists living in town - whether they be life scientists, physical scientists (like astronomers), or social scientists (like geographers!). So, if you're scientific-minded, you might like it here too.

Also of interest is that Ames has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.

A relatively large number of people in Ames telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 9.30% of the workforce works from home. While this may seem like a small number, as a fraction of the total workforce it ranks among the highest in the country. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.

Ames is also a major college town with a large number of people who are 18 years or older and attending college. As is often the case in college towns, the many students that live in Ames have a strong influence on the local culture and entertainment scene, which may seem dormant by comparison in the summer months when much of the student population is away. In the fall, the return of students has a reinvigorating effect on the community. Because colleges are lasting institutions, they have a stabilizing effect on the economy by providing direct local benefits such as jobs for faculty and staff and spending by students. Ames’s economy is one such example of this.

Not only is Ames a city with many college students, but it also retains many recent graduates who are looking to start new careers, creating a very large population of people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile. That’s because Ames is full of single people in their 20s and 30s and who have undergraduate or graduate degrees and are starting careers in professional occupations. This makes Ames a pretty good place for young, educated career starters looking to find many people like themselves, with good opportunities for friendships, socializing, romance, and fun.

Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Ames spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 18.02 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the city are less than they would otherwise be.

For the size of the city, public transportation in Ames is quite heavily used. Mostly, people who use it for their daily commute are taking the bus. For Ames, the benefits are reduced air pollution and congestion on the highways.

Do you have a 4-year college degree or graduate degree? If so, you may feel right at home in Ames. 61.36% of adults here have a 4-year degree or graduate degree, whereas the national average for all cities and towns is just 21.84%.

The per capita income in Ames in 2018 was $29,347, which is lower middle income relative to Iowa, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $117,388 for a family of four. However, Ames contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Ames is a very ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Ames home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Ames residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Ames include German, Irish, English, Norwegian, and Swedish.

The most common language spoken in Ames is English. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese and Spanish.