Olney, Maryland

Area Profile

35,797 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Olney, in Montgomery County.

Area Score unavailable

Missing required signals: opportunity, growth. AreaProfile withholds a score rather than inferring the missing dimensions.

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
SchoolsTop 20% of 2,668 published cities75
Housing affordabilityTop 30% of 4,223 published cities91
ClimateTop 42% of 4,223 published cities72
Physical resilienceTop 17% of 4,182 published cities85
Access2513th of 4,226 published cities89
Economic stabilityTop 7% of 4,226 published cities80
The quick read

Rent takes 17% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 3.8 times that income.

Natural-hazard exposure is lower than in most comparable published city profiles, placing Olney in the top 17% for physical resilience.

A typical July reaches 90°F and a typical January falls to 30°F, on thirty-year normals.

At a glance

Population
35,797
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$171,458
Top 3% nationally
Density
2,212/sq mi
16.2 sq mi of land
Median age
41.6
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Montgomery County
Maryland
Metro area
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV
Nearest major airport
BWI
22 mi · Baltimore/Washington Intl Thurgood Marshall
Median home value
$656,600
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

65% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 95% of measured US cities.

Household income is higher than at least 97% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$6,994$171,458Top 3%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,781$67,351Top 7%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate4.3%Bottom 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute34.8 minTop 17%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher65.0%Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Labor force participation68.7%Top 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$91,930Top 6%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$71,060Top 8%2025 OEWS
Median household income, successive ACS releases
2021202220232024172k161k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $171,458 in the 2024 ACS 5-Year. Consecutive releases share four years of sample, so AreaProfile shows them as a record of successive estimates and does not compute a year-over-year change from them.
Largest occupations — Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
General and Operations Managers112,530$156,460
Business Operations Specialists, All Other76,600$104,770
Software Developers69,060$154,930
Retail Salespersons66,920$36,610
Management Analysts62,360$126,830
Fast Food and Counter Workers60,560$34,600

Occupational employment and wages are published for metropolitan areas rather than for individual cities or ZIP areas, so these describe the wider labor market this location sits in. 2025 OEWS, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

23% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 40% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 15.2 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
6
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
15.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
22.9%
Top 23% in Maryland
Reading proficiency
40.0%
Top 16% in Maryland
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Rosa M. Parks MiddleMontgomery County Public Schools86316.68%37%
William H. Farquhar MiddleMontgomery County Public Schools68215.98%42%
Olney ElementaryMontgomery County Public Schools58516.334%34%
Greenwood ElementaryMontgomery County Public Schools53415.736%47%
Brooke Grove ElementaryMontgomery County Public Schools39011.130%37%
Belmont ElementaryMontgomery County Public Schools34314.945%47%

21.1% of students here are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. That describes the circumstances families arrive with rather than how the schools perform, which is why AreaProfile shows it and does not score it.

Public schools only, from the NCES Common Core of Data. Schools are placed by ZIP code, so this is which schools are in this place rather than which one a particular address is zoned for — district boundaries do not follow municipal ones, and enrollment zones change. Fully virtual schools are excluded: they enroll students from across the state while reporting one administrative address, and counting them here would describe a school population this place does not have. The assessment covers grades 3 through 8, so a high school shows no proficiency figure — a dash in those columns means the test was not given at that school, not that it performed badly. Proficiency is measured against Maryland’s own standard, so it compares cleanly within the state and only broadly against other states; AreaProfile therefore ranks it within state. The directory is current, while the proficiency figures are from the last school year with national coverage before the pandemic interrupted testing.

Housing & affordability

How it’s calculated →

Median rent of $2,404 takes 17% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.8 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
16.8%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.8×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$2,404
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$656,600
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.83Top 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate89.2%Top 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±43512,060Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$267$2,404Top 4%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$14,917$656,600Top 7%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income16.8%Bottom 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate1.9%Bottom 15%2024 ACS 5-Year

Both affordability measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with, so the comparison is like for like. They describe housing cost against local earnings and are not a cost-of-living index — transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not included, and a place can look affordable here and still be expensive to live in for reasons this does not capture.

Growth & development

How it’s calculated →

No building-permit activity is published for this location by the Census Building Permits Survey.

Weather & climate

6 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 90°F and January a low of 30°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 41.8 inches, including 13.7 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 40, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station WASHINGTON REAGAN AP, 20.6 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.3"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index61.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation41.8"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall13.7"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low30°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high90°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months61991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index40.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing44°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
40
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
61
90th percentile index
Days above 100
0
unhealthy for sensitive groups

A comfortable median and a bad tail are different problems. Wildfire smoke and summer ozone show up in the worst tenth of days, not in the middle of the year.

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. They describe what a typical year looks like rather than what the weather is doing today. Air quality is measured rather than modelled, by EPA monitors, and published by county only where a monitor sits — roughly half the counties AreaProfile publishes have one, and the rest show nothing rather than an estimate. Air masses are regional, so a county reading describes the air over a place reasonably well, but it is still the county reading.

Physical risk

85 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are hurricane, cold wave and lightning.

HurricaneModerate
LightningModerate
Cold waveModerate
DroughtModerate
LandslideModerate

Low or minimal exposure: winter weather, heat wave, strong wind, hail, inland flooding, earthquake, tornado, ice storm, wildfire, coastal flooding.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. City values are the population-weighted mean of the counties the city overlaps, using AreaProfile place-to-county land-area weights. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.

These are deaths, not offences. AreaProfile does not publish reported crime, and this is not a substitute for it — it says nothing about burglary, theft or assault.

Montgomery County records 2.6 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, near the middle of counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 4.6 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 7.9 per 100,000 residents in Montgomery County.

Homicide
2.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
4.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
7.9
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
9.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths

Firearm deaths count every intent together, and nationally the majority are suicides rather than homicides. The two columns overlap and should not be added.

Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Montgomery County as a whole — these rates are not published below county level. A county can hold both a dense city centre and a suburb whose experience of it is nothing alike, so this describes the county around Olney rather than Olney itself. That is why AreaProfile shows these figures and does not put them in the Area Score. Where fewer than ten deaths were recorded the count is suppressed at source, and a rate built on single figures moves sharply between releases. What this measure has that reported crime does not: a death certificate is filed whether or not the local police agency submitted a return that year, so the figures stay comparable between places and over time.

What this profile does not cover

Three things people look for are missing from every AreaProfile page, and each is missing for a reason rather than by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.

Reported crime
The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer is the only source for reported offences with national coverage and a published method, and it requires an API key AreaProfile does not hold. Arrest counts, news volume and commercial “safety scores” are not substituted in the meantime. What is published above under Safety is a different measurement — deaths rather than offences, from death certificates rather than police returns — and it covers no property crime at all.
Taxes
No tax dataset has met the source admission test for coverage, transparent methodology and update cadence. Nothing here is individualized tax advice.
Full cost of living
No public source publishes one with national coverage and a documented method. Housing affordability above is computed from published rent, price and income, and excludes transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes — commuting cost in particular tends to offset suburban housing savings.

Access

3 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 22 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Baltimore/Washington Intl Thurgood MarshallBWI22 mi10,503 ft
Washington Dulles IntlIAD25 mi11,500 ft
Harrisburg IntlMDT74 mi10,001 ft

Airport identity, position and runway data come from the FAA. “Major airport” is an AreaProfile classification — a public-use civil airport with a paved runway of at least 8,000 feet — not an FAA hub designation. Distances are straight-line, not driving distance.

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Other cities in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
WashingtonDistrict of Columbia681,29465vs Olney
ArlingtonArlington County236,254vs Olney
AlexandriaAlexandria city156,97661vs Olney
GermantownMontgomery County90,719vs Olney
FrederickFrederick County83,39570vs Olney
WaldorfCharles County82,943vs Olney
Silver SpringMontgomery County81,462vs Olney
CentrevilleFairfax County71,706vs Olney
Dale CityPrince William County71,016vs Olney
GaithersburgMontgomery County69,82568vs Olney
BethesdaMontgomery County69,397vs Olney
RockvilleMontgomery County67,67171vs Olney

Every city here is measured on the same scale from the same source releases, so the comparison is like for like. A higher Area Score reflects AreaProfile’s standardized weighting rather than a judgment about which is the better place to live.

Compare

Put Olney side by side with a similar place.

Olney vs LeanderOlney vs ClarksburgOlney vs Cedar ParkOlney vs Brushy Creek

Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
Physical riskFederal Emergency Management Agency
National Risk Index
National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0)Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current)
ClimateNOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly)
1991-2020 NormalsEvery ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period)
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
Demographics, Housing, Income, JobsU.S. Census Bureau
American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File)
2024 ACS 5-YearAnnual (5-year estimates released each December)
safetyU.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics
Provisional county-level mortality by intent
April, 2025 to March, 2026Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years
schoolsU.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments
2019-20 school year; 2024-25 school yearDirectory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them
ClimateU.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Quality System
Daily Air Quality Index by county
2024 calendar yearAnnually, once a calendar year is complete

Profile recalculated August 30, 2026. Recalculation is not the same as new source data — each figure above shows the period its source actually covers. Read the full methodology or browse every source.

ZIP codes in Olney

2 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
2083225,553$168,524
208337,860$204,375