El Reno, Oklahoma

Area Profile

18,557 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for El Reno, in Canadian County.

59out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 45% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Opportunity2362nd of 3,904 published cities51
Schools2219th of 2,668 published cities25
GrowthTop 14% of 2,973 published cities72
Housing affordabilityTop 22% of 4,223 published cities94
Climate3512th of 4,223 published cities61
Physical resilience2254th of 4,182 published cities54
Access2423rd of 4,226 published cities90
Economic stability3716th of 4,226 published cities35
The quick read

Unemployment is 3.9% and median household income $56,219, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published city profiles.

In the public schools here, 22% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 15.9 students for every teacher.

Residential permitting has slowed: 126 units authorized over the past twelve months, 26% below the prior year.

At a glance

Population
18,557
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$56,219
Bottom 33% nationally
Density
233/sq mi
79.6 sq mi of land
Median age
34.8
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Canadian County
Oklahoma
Metro area
Oklahoma City, OK
Nearest major airport
OKC
23 mi · OKC Will Rogers Intl
Median home value
$165,900
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.9% is lower than 66% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 1.6% over the past year, to 95,394 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$6,762$56,219Bottom 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,939$26,318Bottom 24%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate19.3%Top 25%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute23.5 minBottom 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher16.3%Bottom 38%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment95,394Top 39%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)3.6%Top 11%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-1.6%Bottom 29%June 2026
Labor force99,317Top 39%June 2026
Labor force participation56.3%Bottom 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$60,330Bottom 15%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$47,230Bottom 17%2025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)1.0%Top 5%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.9%Bottom 34%June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202456k49k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $56,219 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 — Oklahoma City, OK
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Fast Food and Counter Workers22,970$24,960
Retail Salespersons18,370$30,160
Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand18,320$37,010
General and Operations Managers17,710$97,110
Registered Nurses16,530$82,920
Customer Service Representatives15,610$39,330

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.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes city-level labor data only for places of 25,000 or more. This is the figure for Canadian County, OK, which contains this city.

22% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 22% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 15.9 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
12
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
15.9
across all schools here
Math proficiency
22.0%
Bottom 20% in Oklahoma
Reading proficiency
22.3%
Bottom 20% in Oklahoma
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
EL RENO HSEL RENO1,04017.9
ETTA DALE JHSEL RENO43816.23%17%
LINCOLN LEARNING CTREL RENO40116.713%12%
LESLIE F ROBLYER LEARNING CTREL RENO38816.212%12%
ROSE WITCHER ESEL RENO37014.8
BANNER PUBLIC SCHOOLBANNER32413.525%35%
HILLCREST ESEL RENO30013.6
DARLINGTON PUBLIC SCHOOLDARLINGTON24121.926%25%
MAPLE PUBLIC SCHOOLMAPLE19214.870%55%
CALUMET ESCALUMET19113.650%21%
RIVERSIDE PUBLIC SCHOOLRIVERSIDE17017.0
CALUMET HSCALUMET8811.0

71.8% 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 Oklahoma’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 $968 takes 21% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.0 times median household income here, close to the historic benchmark for an affordable market.

Rent as a share of income
20.7%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.0×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$968
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$165,900
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income2.95Top 49%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate60.2%Bottom 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3576,824Top 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$62$968Top 50%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$8,059$165,900Bottom 44%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income20.7%Top 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate9.8%Top 50%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 →
Development Momentum
72/ 100
Top 14% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing, measured from 2020 to 2025.

An AreaProfile calculation combining permit volume per resident, its direction over one and three years, population change and employment growth. Permit volume alone is not the measure.

Population has grown 17% since 2020, reaching 20,041 in 2024.

Permitting has turned upward after moving the other way the year before.

New construction is predominantly single-family: only 0% of permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes.

At 6.8 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
126
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
6.8
Top 22% nationally
Year over year
−26%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202420k17k
Census Population Estimates Program, July 1 of each year. These annual estimates are designed for year-over-year comparison, unlike the ACS five-year figure shown as this profile's population.
Housing units permitted per year
2020202220232024202517881
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2020 (+63%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 95°F and January a low of 28°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 30.7 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 44, in the Good band, and about 11 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station OKLAHOMA CITY POST AP, 17.7 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.8"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index77.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation30.7"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low28°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high95°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 100112024 calendar year
Median air quality index44.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing45°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
44
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
77
90th percentile index
Days above 100
11
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

54 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are inland flooding, cold wave and hail.

Ice stormHigh
HailHigh
Cold waveModerate
WildfireModerate
Inland floodingModerate
DroughtModerate
LightningModerate

Low or minimal exposure: tornado, heat wave, winter weather, strong wind, earthquake, landslide, hurricane.

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.

Canadian County records 2.4 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 16.5 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 8.0 per 100,000 residents in Canadian County.

Homicide
2.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
16.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
8.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
21.6
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 Canadian 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 El Reno rather than El Reno 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

4 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 23 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
OKC Will Rogers IntlOKC23 mi9,802 ft
Enid Woodring RgnlWDG58 mi8,613 ft
Infinity One Oklahoma SpaceportCSM71 mi13,503 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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Area Score
59
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Other cities in Oklahoma City, OK

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
Oklahoma CityOklahoma County697,12560vs El Reno
NormanCleveland County129,67262vs El Reno
EdmondOklahoma County96,82570vs El Reno
MooreCleveland County63,42065vs El Reno
Midwest CityOklahoma County58,29752vs El Reno
YukonCanadian County25,52966vs El Reno
MustangCanadian County22,19270vs El Reno
Del CityOklahoma County21,49445vs El Reno
BethanyOklahoma County20,56056vs El Reno
ChickashaGrady County16,53963vs El Reno
NewcastleMcClain County13,00166vs El Reno
ChoctawOklahoma County12,30366vs El Reno

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 El Reno side by side with a similar place.

El Reno vs GuthrieEl Reno vs West OdessaEl Reno vs DothanEl Reno vs Pell City

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
Local Area Unemployment Statistics
June 2026Monthly
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
DemographicsU.S. Census Bureau
Population Estimates Program
July 1, 2024 estimateAnnual (vintage released each spring)
DevelopmentU.S. Census Bureau
Building Permits Survey
12 months ending July 2026Monthly, roughly three weeks after the reference month
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 El Reno

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
7303621,387$59,91559