Data study
America’s Youngest and Oldest Cities (2025)
One American city has a median age of 17.5. Another has a median age of 74. We ranked the country’s age extremes — college towns, a fast-growing religious community, and Florida’s retirement meccas — from 2024 Census data.
Key takeaways
- Lakewood, NJ is America’s youngest sizable city, median age 17.5 — younger than a high-school senior.
- The Villages, FL is the oldest, median age 74.1 — a 56-year gap between the two extremes.
- The youngest cities split into two types: college towns and large-family communities.
- The oldest cities are almost all in Florida, led by purpose-built retirement towns.
The national median age is about 39 — but in individual cities it swings wildly, from the late teens to the mid-seventies. Median age is one of the most revealing numbers about a place: it hints at who lives there, what the housing looks like, and what the local economy runs on. Using the Census Bureau’s 2024 figures, we ranked the cities (65,000+ residents) at both extremes.
The youngest cities in America
| City | Median age | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Lakewood, NJ | 17.5 | Large-family community, high birth rate |
| College Station, TX | 22.9 | Texas A&M University |
| Ames, IA | 23.3 | Iowa State University |
| Jacksonville, NC | 23.4 | Marine Corps base (Camp Lejeune) |
| Provo, UT | 23.6 | BYU; young families |
| Bloomington, IN | 25.1 | Indiana University |
The standout is Lakewood, New Jersey. Its median age of 17.5 isn’t a college effect — it’s demographics. Lakewood is home to one of the fastest-growing Orthodox Jewish communities in the country, with large families and one of the highest birth rates of any U.S. city. The result is a population where half of residents are still children. Every other city near the top is a classic college town, where a flood of 18-to-24-year-olds drags the median down: College Station (Texas A&M), Ames (Iowa State), Provo (BYU), Bloomington (Indiana).
The oldest cities in America
At the far end, the map turns almost entirely to Florida.
| City | Median age | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| The Villages, FL | 74.1 | Master-planned retirement community |
| Port Charlotte, FL | 55.4 | Gulf-coast retirement area |
| Delray Beach, FL | 51.3 | South Florida coastal city |
| Palm Coast, FL | 50.4 | Atlantic-coast retirement city |
| Scottsdale, AZ | 49.0 | Affluent Sun Belt city |
| Cape Coral, FL | 48.6 | Gulf-coast suburb |
The Villages is in a category of its own. A purpose-built retirement community north of Orlando, it has a median age of 74 — meaning a typical resident is older than the U.S. retirement age. It’s also one of the fastest-growing metros in the country, a reminder that “old” and “shrinking” are not the same thing. Behind it, a wall of Florida cities in the late 40s and 50s traces the country’s retirement geography almost perfectly.
Find your city’s median age
Median age sits near the top of every CensusFlow city page, alongside population, income, housing and race. Want to see whether your town skews student, family or retiree? Search any place. And for two more ways American cities sort themselves, read about the most diverse cities and the richest and poorest cities in the country.