Lenoir City, Tennessee

Area Profile

11,110 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Lenoir City, in Loudon County.

69out of 100
Area Score
Top 21% of 2,944 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 20% of 3,904 cities measured71
SchoolsTop 30% of 2,668 cities measured67
GrowthTop 24% of 2,973 cities measured65
Housing affordabilityTop 28% of 4,223 cities measured92
ClimateTop 23% of 4,223 cities measured77
Physical resilience2450th of 4,182 cities measured49
Access2835th of 4,226 cities measured87
Economic stability3297th of 4,226 cities measured43
The quick read

Lenoir City ranks in the top 20% of published city profiles for employment opportunity, with unemployment at 3.3% and median household income of $67,259.

Residential permitting has slowed: 80 units authorized over the past twelve months, 85% below the prior year.

A major airport is 16 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
11,110
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$67,259
Top 49% nationally
Density
1,288/sq mi
8.6 sq mi of land
Median age
40.0
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Loudon County
Tennessee
Metro area
Knoxville, TN
Nearest major airport
TYS
16 mi · Mc Ghee Tyson
Median home value
$252,400
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.3% is lower than 89% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 0.2% over the past year, to 27,148 employed residents.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$4,825$67,259Top 49%of 29,5732024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$3,028$32,936Bottom 47%of 31,4202024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate17.0%Top 30%of 31,9002024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute23.3 minBottom 32%of 31,5432024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher19.3%Bottom 47%of 31,9192024 ACS 5-Year
Employment27,148Bottom 35%of 3,904June 2026
Employment change (3 years)5.2%Top 6%of 3,903June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.2%Top 33%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force28,088Bottom 34%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force participation59.4%Bottom 46%of 31,9332024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$59,890Bottom 14%of 3,6582025 OEWS
Median annual wage$47,080Bottom 17%of 3,6582025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.4%Bottom 21%of 3,904June 2026
Unemployment rate3.3%Bottom 11%of 3,904June 2026
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202467k51k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $67,259 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 — Knoxville, TN
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Fast Food and Counter Workers12,730$27,720
Retail Salespersons12,430$31,150
Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand10,120$37,400
Registered Nurses9,500$77,240
General and Operations Managers8,660$104,590
Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers8,130$59,100

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 Loudon County, TN, which contains this city.

43% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 33% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

Public schools
6
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
Math proficiency
43.0%
Top 26% in Tennessee
Reading proficiency
33.4%
Top 41% in Tennessee
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Lenoir City High SchoolLenoir City1,259
North Middle SchoolLoudon County78062%42%
Lenoir City Intermediate/Middle SchoolLenoir City72228%14%
Eaton ElementaryLoudon County67752%47%
Lenoir City ElementaryLenoir City55922%22%
Highland Park ElementaryLoudon County41047%44%

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 Tennessee’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 →

Prices for everything a household buys run about 8% below the national average, on the Bureau of Economic Analysis index. Housing drives most of that difference.

Median rent of $932 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.

Cost of living
92.2

Prices here run about 8% below the national average. The spread between places is driven mostly by housing — goods vary far less — and this excludes taxes.

Rent as a share of income
16.6%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.8×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$932
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$252,400
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Cost of living index92.2Bottom 14%of 3,6582023
Home price to income3.75Top 31%of 28,4732024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate63.7%Bottom 26%of 31,8432024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±3434,894Top 12%of 32,3302024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$150$932Bottom 45%of 23,4322024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$31,109$252,400Top 35%of 29,3422024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income16.6%Bottom 35%of 23,2012024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate7.3%Bottom 39%of 32,0012024 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
65/ 100
Top 24% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing — 2 consecutive years, 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 19% since 2020, reaching 12,041 in 2024.

Population is still rising, but more slowly than in the preceding year.

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

At 7.2 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
80
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
7.2
Top 20% nationally
Year over year
−85%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202412k10k
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
2020202220232024202547464
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2020 (+641%).

Weather & climate

7 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 87°F and January a low of 29°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 59.7 inches, including 4.4 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 42, 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 OAK RIDGE ATDD, 13.1 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND5.9"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index58.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation59.7"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall4.4"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low29°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high87°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months71991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index42.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing40°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
42
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
58
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

49 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are inland flooding, earthquake and tornado.

EarthquakeHigh
LandslideModerate
LightningModerate
Inland floodingModerate
Winter weatherModerate
TornadoModerate
DroughtModerate

Low or minimal exposure: strong wind, cold wave, ice storm, hurricane, wildfire, hail, heat wave.

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.

Violent crime
215
per 100,000 residents · 2025 calendar year
Property crime
1,201
per 100,000 residents · 2025 calendar year

Below these are deaths rather than offences, published for the county. The two measure different things and are not comparable with each other.

Lenoir City's police department reported 215 violent offences per 100,000 residents, near the middle of places with a department reporting. Property crime runs at 1,201.

Loudon County records 3.1 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 23.1 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 39.6 per 100,000 residents in Loudon County.

Homicide
3.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
23.1
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
39.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
29.7
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.

Offences are reported to the FBI by Lenoir City’s own police department, for the population it serves, and are shown only where it reported every month of the year — a partial year is withheld rather than scaled up. Reported crime counts what was reported to and recorded by police, which is not the same as what happened, and a place that draws a large daytime workforce carries incidents its residents did not generate. Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Loudon 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 Lenoir City rather than Lenoir City 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.

Taxes
Taxes are not published: no source covers them nationally with a method open enough to check. Cost of living now is — the index above is the Bureau of Economic Analysis price parity for this area — but it is a price level for all consumption rather than a budget for a household, its spread is driven mostly by housing, and it excludes taxes. Housing affordability is computed separately from rent, price and income, because that answers a narrower and more actionable question. Nothing here is individualised tax advice.
Anything about a specific address
Every figure describes an area, not a street or a house. School attendance zones, insurance pricing and the character of a neighbourhood all vary within the places measured here.

Access

1 major airport lies within 100 miles, the nearest 16 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Mc Ghee TysonTYS16 mi10,000 ft
Asheville RgnlAVL101 mi8,002 ft
Tri-CitiesTRI114 mi8,000 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
69
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Other cities in Knoxville, TN

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
KnoxvilleKnox County195,18566vs Lenoir City
Oak RidgeAnderson County32,69370vs Lenoir City
MaryvilleBlount County32,39274vs Lenoir City
FarragutKnox County24,63479vs Lenoir City
PowellKnox County13,739vs Lenoir City
AlcoaBlount County12,22270vs Lenoir City
HallsKnox County10,272vs Lenoir City
ClintonAnderson County10,23967vs Lenoir City

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.

Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
safetyFederal Bureau of Investigation, Crime Data Explorer
Summarized offense counts by law enforcement agency
2025 calendar yearAnnually, with monthly revisions
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)
HousingU.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
Regional price parities and county personal income
2023Annually, each December
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)
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)
DevelopmentU.S. Census Bureau
Building Permits Survey
12 months ending July 2026Monthly, roughly three weeks after the reference month
DemographicsU.S. Census Bureau
Population Estimates Program
July 1, 2024 estimateAnnual (vintage released each spring)
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 Lenoir City

2 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
3777118,042$66,93868
3777214,646$100,71173