These Are The Best Places To Live In Virginia

ARLINGTON, VA — What’s the best place to live in Virginia? That depends on who you ask and according to a new set of rankings released by Niche.com, Arlington, a suburb of the nation’s capital, is the best place to live in the Commonwealth.

The suburbs of Northern Virginia placed prominently in the rankings released April 17. Placing in the top 20 are Oakton, Reston, Vienna, Ashburn and Tysons Corner. SIGN UP: Subscribe to a Virginia Patch News Alert and Newsletter. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.

An Arlington resident describes the community as a very beautiful area with "so many national monuments near by to visit and admire. Lots of trails for exercising and health food stores for people who love to live that healthy lifestyle. Only down side would be the traffic, but it's not anything someone can't handle."

To arrive at the rankings, Niche.com took several factors into consideration, such as the quality of local schools, crime rates, housing trends, employment statistics and access to amenities. Niche created a standardized score for each factor and after weighting each factor, an overall score was calculated, which was again given a new standardized score.

Finally, Niche.com created a numerical ranking and assigned grades for each place. Click here to read more about the methodology.

According to Niche.com, these are the best places to live in Virginia:

1. Arlington
2. Broadlands
3. Brambleton
4. Belmot
5. Floris
6. Franklin Farm
7. Merrifield
8. Oakton
9. Lowes Island
10. South Riding

Click here to view the full list.

According to the rankings, the best places to live in the country are:

1. Carmel, Indiana
2. Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania
3. Morrisville, North Carolina
4. Dublin, Ohio
5. Buffalo Grove, Illinois
6. Penn Wynne, Pennsylvania
7. Ann Arbor, Michigan
8. Naperville, Illinois
9. Clarendon Hills, Illinois
10. Devon, Pennsylvania

Do you agree with the rankings? Let us know in the comments below!

»Patch file photo