County rankings · computed from the data, updated daily
The counties with the most doctors per person
Olmsted County, Minnesota has the most active physicians per resident of the 886 US counties with 50,000 or more people: 289.8 per 10,000 people (HRSA Area Health Resources File 2023).
For anyone planning to grow old somewhere, this is the number that matters more than the tax rate. Active physicians per 10,000 residents from HRSA, ranked, with the Medicare hospital star rating and life expectancy next to it.
The top of the list is dominated by counties with teaching hospitals. The bottom of the national distribution has counties with zero physicians; you can find those on the map by dragging the handle down.
25 of 886 qualifying counties shown. Click a county for its page.
| # | County | Physicians | Hospital stars | Life expectancy | Median home | People |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Olmsted, MN | 4704 | 4.5 | 81.8 | $355K | 162K |
| 2 | Orange, NC | 2855 | 5.0 | 81.6 | $513K | 146K |
| 3 | Suffolk, MA | 14627 | 3.9 | 80.4 | $760K | 785K |
| 4 | Johnson, IA | 2811 | 3.7 | 82.0 | $312K | 153K |
| 5 | Grafton, NH | 1657 | 3.0 | 80.3 | $435K | 91K |
| 6 | St. Louis city, MO | 4752 | 3.7 | 72.4 | $184K | 298K |
| 7 | Monongalia, WV | 1654 | 3.5 | 78.6 | $267K | 106K |
| 8 | New York, NY | 23809 | 3.7 | 83.3 | $1206K | 1,646K |
| 9 | Washtenaw, MI | 5241 | 4.2 | 80.4 | $423K | 370K |
| 10 | Durham, NC | 4311 | 4.7 | 79.4 | $400K | 325K |
| 11 | Baltimore city, MD | 7751 | 3.5 | 71.0 | $188K | 585K |
| 12 | Alachua, FL | 3342 | 4.0 | 77.9 | $308K | 280K |
| 13 | Chittenden, VT | 1790 | 4.0 | 81.3 | $515K | 168K |
| 14 | Boone, MO | 1928 | 3.7 | 78.7 | $334K | 184K |
| 15 | Orleans Parish, LA | 3953 | 2.7 | 74.5 | $247K | 380K |
| 16 | Charleston, SC | 4146 | 3.7 | 78.1 | $617K | 410K |
| 17 | Cabell, WV | 941 | 3.0 | 70.4 | $171K | 94K |
| 18 | Richmond city, VA | 2216 | 4.5 | 75.0 | $374K | 227K |
| 19 | Boone, IN | 687 | 4.0 | 78.0 | $422K | 71K |
| 20 | San Francisco, CA | 8150 | 3.3 | 82.9 | $1394K | 851K |
| 21 | Fayette, KY | 3031 | 3.2 | 77.4 | $335K | 321K |
| 22 | Roanoke city, VA | 895 | 3.0 | 71.4 | $223K | 99K |
| 23 | Cuyahoga, OH | 11296 | 4.0 | 75.7 | $222K | 1,257K |
| 24 | Pulaski, AR | 3569 | 2.6 | 74.3 | $211K | 398K |
| 25 | Pitt, NC | 1533 | 2.0 | 76.0 | $246K | 171K |
Sources: HRSA Area Health Resources File 2023 · CMS 2024 · County Health Rankings 2024 · Zillow ZHVI 2024. Population: Census 2023 estimates. Recomputed from the county database every day.
What the list shows
The 25 counties come from 20 states. North Carolina appears most often, with 3 of the 25. Olmsted, MN leads at 289.8 per 10,000 people; number 25, Pitt, NC, sits at 89.5 per 10,000 people, a gap of 200.3 per 10,000 people from top to bottom of the table.
Across all 886 counties over the 50,000-person floor, the median value of the ranking column (Active Physicians) is 23.1 per 10,000 people. Every county on this list is above that middle.
On housing, of the 25 with a Zillow figure, 3 have a median home under $200K and 6 are at $500K or more. The cheapest is Cabell, WV at $171K; the most expensive is San Francisco, CA at $1394K.
How we rank
Every county with 50,000 or more residents in the Census 2023 estimate is eligible. Counties are ranked by Active Physicians per resident, highest first, from HRSA Area Health Resources File 2023. A county missing any figure in the table is left out rather than scored as zero, which is why 886 of the 3,222 places in the county database qualify. Connecticut’s planning regions are excluded because they are not counties. The table is recomputed from the database every day, so figures here can move as sources update.
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