Loudoun Is the Happiest County in America

A recent study conducted by popular website SmartAsset determined that Loudoun County is America’s happiest county with at least 50,000 residents.

The study looked at four factors in ranking the counties with the nation’s highest quality of living: family stability; physical health; personal financial health; and economic security.

Here’s what SmartAsset had to say about Loudoun:

“Loudoun County has grown rapidly in recent years. The population has exploded from less than 90,000 in 1990 to over 310,000 today. One reason for that growth? Loudoun County offers residents the highest quality of life of any major county in the U.S.

“Loudoun County ranked in the top 20 out of the nearly 1,000 counties in SmartAsset’s study for six of the eight metrics we considered. The county’s poverty rate is just 3.6%, lowest of any major U.S. county. Meanwhile, the life expectancy of 82.6 ranks sixth and the marriage rate of 62.3% ranks 11th out of all U.S. counties with a population over 50,000.”

Three of the study’s top five counties are in Virginia - Fairfax County is #3 and York County (home of Yorktown, between Williamsburg and Norfolk in the Hampton Roads region) is #5. Rounding out the top five are Delaware County, Ohio, at #2 and Carver County, Minnesota, at #4.

Howard County, Md., is ranked #7, while two other Virginia counties cracked the study’s top 25 - James City, at #16, and Arlington, at #22.