FILE-A woman runs along the Hudson River with the Manhattan skyline in the background May 19, 2003 in Hoboken, New Jersey. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
A new report explores cities that offer optimal conditions for women to thrive.
WalletHub ranked areas that are ideal to manage women’s economic, health and safety concerns compared to other locales.
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The personal finance website created its list of best and worst cities for women, comparing 182 cities nationwide across key categories of living standards for women, including "women’s economic & social well-being" and "women’s healthcare & safety."
Best cities for women in 2026
Best cities for women for health, jobs and quality of life in 2026
Dig deeper:
To assess which cities are the best and worst cities for women, WalletHub looked at 15 metrics, which are graded on a 100-point scale, with a perfect score representing the most favorable conditions for women.
- Columbia, Maryland
- Seattle
- Fremont, California
- South Burlington, Vermont
- Washington, D.C.
- San Francisco
- Overland Park, Kansas
- Raleigh, North Carolina
- Gilbert, Arizona
- Santa Clarita, California
- Scottsdale, Arizona
- Irvine, California
- Jersey City, New Jersey
- Denver
- Huntington Beach, California
- Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Atlanta
- Portland, Maine
- Henderson, Nevada
- Durham, North Carolina
See the complete list here.
Worst cities for women in 2026
- Jackson, Mississippi
- Huntington, West Virginia
- Shreveport, Louisiana
- Gulfport, Mississippi
- Brownsville, Texas
See the full rankings here.
An examination of the best cities for women
Big picture view:
WalletHub ranked Columbia, Maryland, Seattle and Fremont, California as the best cities for women and here's the breakdown of how the personal finance website evaluated each area.
Columbia, MD
WalletHub ranked Columbia, Maryland as the best city for women in 2026, in part due to the city having the highest median annual wages for women at $63,920. The poverty rate for women is only 8.2%, the eighth lowest in the nation.
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The city’s unemployment rate for women is a little over 3%, the 17th-lowest in the United States. Additionally, about 23% of businesses in the area are owned by women, the 31st-highest percentage, WalletHub noted.
Furthermore, Columbia has the 10th-best life expectancy for women at birth and the 12th-highest share of women over age 21 who received a cervical cancer examination within the recommended time frame and the 3rd-highest number who have received a mammogram in the past two years. According to WalletHub, roughly 86% of women are physically active, representing the ninth-highest percentage in the U.S.
Seattle
Seattle ranks second as the best city for women, with roughly 11% of women living in poverty, the 25th-lowest percentage in the country. The city also has the 18th-highest median annual wages at $50,138. And the area also has the seventh-highest percentage of women-owned businesses.
According to WalletHub, only 3.4% of women in the city don’t have health insurance, which is the ninth-lowest percentage in the nation.
Seattle also has the 11th-highest life expectancy at birth for women and the second-highest percentage of physically active women, as well as the 10th-lowest obesity rate among women, emphasizing a quality environment for women’s health and well-being.
Fremont, California
WalletHub ranked Fremont, California as the third-best city for women, in part due to the area having one of the highest life expectancies for women at birth.
Fremont also has the lowest number of women without health insurance, and the fourth-lowest obesity rate among women. WalletHub noted that this shows that women are receiving quality medical care when they need it while also supporting their health and well-being.
The city also has a stable economy and strong job market, with the 10th-highest median annual wages and the second-lowest poverty rate.
The Source: Information for this story was provided by WalletHub, which created its rankings of the best cities for women using key criteria with each metric graded on a 100-point scale, with a perfect score representing optimal conditions for women.