Cedar City, Utah

Area Profile

38,524 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Cedar City, in Iron County.

57out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 39% of 2,944 published profiles

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 29% of 3,904 published cities66
Schools1752nd of 2,668 published cities39
GrowthTop 2% of 2,973 published cities83
Housing affordability2919th of 4,223 published cities68
Climate3810th of 4,223 published cities58
Physical resilience3486th of 4,182 published cities22
AccessTop 40% of 4,226 published cities95
Economic stability2923rd of 4,226 published cities49
The quick read

Development activity is both elevated and accelerating — 441 housing units permitted over the past twelve months, up 25% on the prior year.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by wildfire, earthquake and drought.

A major airport is 1 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
38,524
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$63,589
Bottom 45% nationally
Density
1,064/sq mi
36.2 sq mi of land
Median age
26.8
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Iron County
Utah
Metro area
Cedar City, UT
Nearest major airport
CDC
1 mi · Cedar City Rgnl
Median home value
$377,000
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 3.7% is lower than 74% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 0.8% over the past year, to 19,826 employed residents.

36% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 77% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$4,196$63,589Bottom 45%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,293$30,229Bottom 37%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate18.9%Top 26%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute14.8 minBottom 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher35.6%Top 23%2024 ACS 5-Year
Employment19,826Bottom 25%June 2026
Employment change (3 years)4.6%Top 7%June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-0.8%Bottom 48%June 2026
Labor force20,595Bottom 24%June 2026
Labor force participation66.3%Top 30%2024 ACS 5-Year
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.1%Bottom 44%June 2026
Unemployment rate3.7%Bottom 26%June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/063.82.2
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 3.7% in June 2026. A break in the line is a month the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish for this area — it is left empty rather than estimated.
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202464k55k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $63,589 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.

42% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 42% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 28.1 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
17
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
28.1
across all schools here
Math proficiency
41.8%
Top 49% in Utah
Reading proficiency
42.4%
Bottom 47% in Utah
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Southwest Educational AcademyIron District4,239302.8
Cedar City HighIron District1,37220.5
Cedar MiddleIron District1,13920.347%50%
Canyon View HighIron District1,02117.3
Canyon View MiddleIron District94819.327%52%
Gateway Preparatory Academy · charterGateway Preparatory Academy73222.927%31%
Three Peaks SchoolIron District64620.853%42%
Iron Springs SchoolIron District63619.954%50%
Cedar East SchoolIron District59820.637%35%
Cedar North SchoolIron District57819.947%40%
Cedar South SchoolIron District54518.238%36%
Enoch SchoolIron District51617.249%39%

29.3% 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 Utah’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 $1,054 takes 20% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 5.9 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Rent as a share of income
19.9%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
5.9×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,054
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$377,000
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income5.93Top 9%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate56.7%Bottom 16%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±37013,572Top 4%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$82$1,054Top 43%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$14,144$377,000Top 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income19.9%Top 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate8.0%Bottom 43%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
83/ 100
Top 2% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is increasing — 2 consecutive years, measured from 2022 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 15% since 2020, reaching 40,885 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 11.4 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
441
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
11.4
Top 10% nationally
Year over year
+25%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
0.0%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
2020202120222023202441k35k
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
2022202320242025689241
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was lower than 2022 (−45%).

Weather & climate

5 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 91°F and January a low of 18°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 11.0 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 43, in the Good band, and no day in the year passed 100.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station CEDAR CITY MUNI AP, 1.7 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND1.2"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index55.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation11.0"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low18°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high91°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months51991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10002024 calendar year
Median air quality index43.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing45°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
43
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
55
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

22 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are wildfire, earthquake and drought.

WildfireHigh
LandslideModerate
EarthquakeHigh
Volcanic activityModerate
DroughtModerate
AvalancheModerate
Heat waveModerate

Low or minimal exposure: winter weather, lightning, inland flooding, ice storm, strong wind, cold wave, tornado, hail.

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.

Iron County records 2.7 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 15.6 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 16.7 per 100,000 residents in Iron County.

Homicide
2.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
15.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
16.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
18.7
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.

Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Iron 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 Cedar City rather than Cedar 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.

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

2 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 1 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Cedar City RgnlCDC1 mi8,653 ft
St George RgnlSGU50 mi9,300 ft
Grand Canyon Ntl ParkGCN131 mi8,999 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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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
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 Cedar City

2 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
8472130,641$67,29958
8472025,708$67,67059