America’s Most Literate Cities, 2005

Drawing from a variety of available data resources, the America’s Most Literate Cities study ranks the 69 largest cities (population 250,000 and above) in the United States.  Previous editions of this study focused on five key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, and educational attainment. The 2005 study introduces a new factor—the Internet—to gauge the expansion of literacy to online media.

The original study was published online in 2003 at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. A link to the 2004 rankings is provided here.  A link to the 2006 rankings is provided here.

Dr. John W. Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University, is the author of this study. Research for the 2005 edition of AMLC was conducted in collaboration with the Center for Public Policy and Social Research at CCSU.

   
   

The Top Ten
Seattle, WA	1
Minneapolis, MN	2
Washington, DC	3
Atlanta, GA	4
San Francisco, CA	5
Denver, CO	6
Boston, MA	7
Pittsburgh, PA	8
Cincinnati, OH	9.5
St. Paul, MN	9.5