Best PlacesDewey County, OK Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in Dewey County, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. This page is for people who live here or already know they want to. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.

See the map of best neighborhoods

Dewey County ranks 1,866th of 3,144 U.S. counties on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on a stable housing market by a wide margin, and empty homes are the weak spot.

#1,866
of 3,144 counties
BestNeighborhood rank
Defaults weight crime safety, affordability, schools, and weather highest: the things hardest to change after a move
N/A
of 3,144 counties
Your rank
Set your priorities to see your rank

The best neighborhoods in Dewey County

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Dewey County area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
Colorblind friendly off
Popular priorities:

BestNeighborhood is the only ranking that scores 40 measures of daily life neighborhood by neighborhood and lets you re-weight every one of them yourself.

Dewey County's strengths and weaknesses

Top 5%A stable housing market
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Dewey County with other counties.

Where Dewey County ranks high

  • Housing crash safetyBetter than 95% of counties
  • Local economyBetter than 90% of counties
  • QuietBetter than 86% of counties
  • State fiscal healthBetter than 84% of counties
  • Short commute19.6 minutes each way, better than 81% of counties

Where Dewey County ranks low

  • Low vacancyBetter than only 6% of counties
  • Air qualityBetter than only 6% of counties
  • Internet speedBetter than only 7% of counties
  • Tree shadeBetter than only 8% of counties
  • State infrastructureBetter than only 9% of counties

What it costs to buy a home in Dewey County

A household needs to earn about $35,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Dewey County home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $61,873, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.

Income to buy the median home
$35,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$810
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $135,585 home
Median rent
$911
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$691
Property tax$74
Homeowners insurance$45

Assumes a 20% down payment, a 6.6% 30-year fixed rate, and a 28% share of income going to the payment. The rate is the 2026-07-23 30-year fixed average, series MORTGAGE30US from the St. Louis Fed, which publishes Freddie Mac's weekly survey. Against the median home value, property tax uses Dewey County's effective rate of 0.65%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.

Renting versus buying

At today's prices, buying tends to cost more than renting for about the first 4 years, then pulls ahead as rent keeps rising and the mortgage builds equity. The chart tracks the running cost of each.

Cumulative cost of renting versus owning the median home, first 10 years. Illustrative estimate.

Who lives in Dewey County

Dewey County's age mix sits close to the national median.

Median age
40
about the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
20%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.6
near the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1827%
18 to 3419%
35 to 4917%
50 to 6417%
65 and older20%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Dewey County.


Who works in Dewey County, and how

Work in Dewey County centers on retail trade and mining & oil & gas. Unemployment is low, and jobs are growing.

Work from home
7%
below the national average
Unemployment
2.2%
below the national average
Job growth
+2.4%
/y 2019-2023, near the national pace

Largest industries

Retail trade13%
Mining & oil & gas12%
Education10%
Agriculture & forestry9%
Other services7%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 87%
  • Work from home 7%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 6%

Life in Dewey County

Dewey County has more parkland per resident than 97% of counties. That concentrates in some parts of Dewey County and thins out in others, which the map shows.

Coffee shops
7
about 15.6 per 10,000 residents, more than 88% of counties
Parkland
86 acres
about 19.1 acres per 1,000 residents, more than 97% of counties

Is Dewey County growing, and who is moving in?

Dewey County has lost about 14% of its population over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from Oklahoma City, OK.

Population growth
-14%
over the decade, vs about 6% nationally
Population
4,268
down from 4,966
Population by year. Source: U.S. Census Population Estimates Program.

Where new residents come from

Oklahoma City, OK53 / yr
Woodward County, OK50 / yr
Kay County, OK42 / yr
Delaware County, OK24 / yr
Albany, OR16 / yr

Where people leaving Dewey County go

Oklahoma City, OK306 / yr
Cape Girardeau, MO49 / yr
Caldwell Parish, LA36 / yr
Denver, CO32 / yr
Topeka, KS30 / yr

Move counts are the latest county-to-county migration flows, each county grouped into its metro.


What the weather is like in Dewey County, month by month

Dewey County sees roughly 123 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 95 degrees. January highs sit near 50, with lows near 27. The comfortable stretch runs April, May, September, and October.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January50°37°27°
April74°59°47°
July95°83°71°
October76°62°51°

Flying in and out of Dewey County

The nearest airport, Okc Will Rogers International, is about 94 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Dallas-Fort Worth International, about 247 miles away.

Nearest airport
OKC
Okc Will Rogers International, about 94 miles
Airport size
Small hub
68th-busiest in the US, 68 nonstop destinations
Average drive
135 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Dewey County

Schools across Dewey County average a C−, better than 19% of counties.

Top elementary schools

Top middle schools

Top high schools

Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Dewey County school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


Dewey County measure by measure

Cards are ordered by how much each measure matters to you, so the ones you weighted highest come first. Expand to see every measure. Percentages compare Dewey County against the other 3,143 counties.


Common questions about living in Dewey County

Is Dewey County a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Dewey County ranks 1,866th of 3,144 counties. It scores highest on a stable housing market, a strong job market, and quiet, and lowest on empty homes and air quality. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Dewey County expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $135,585. The overall cost of living runs about 25% below the national average. Set against a $61,873 median income, cost of living beats 57% of counties.

Is Dewey County safe?

Dewey County is safer than 27% of counties. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $504 per resident a year.


Compare Dewey County with other counties


Sources and methodology

Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Dewey County. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Dewey County represents the same real quantity as a 60 anywhere else, and the ranking is a weighted average of those absolutes. The map colors come from a national scale calibrated against a population weighted random sample of 5,000 neighborhoods. That absolute scoring is what no other places-to-live ranking does: it puts a single neighborhood, a town, a metro, and a state on one scale, so the same 40 measures answer both which metro to move to and which street inside it to buy on. Read the full methodology.

Dewey County detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

  1. Walk Grade for Dewey County: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
  2. Noise in Dewey County: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
  3. Conservative vs liberal map of Dewey County: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
  4. Mobile and cell coverage in Dewey County: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.

Dewey County detail on related sites:

  1. CrimeGrade: neighborhood crime rates behind the crime safety score.
  2. ISPreports.org: provider by provider internet availability and advertised speeds.
  3. CoverageWatch: the car insurance premiums behind the cheap car insurance score.

Federal and public data:

  1. U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey: income, home value, rent, vacancy, commute time and mode, educational attainment, home age, age structure, household type, industry, and race.
  2. U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program: population growth and net migration behind the population-change section.
  3. NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day: the daily station record behind the monthly temperatures and the pleasant-day count.
  4. FAA Passenger Boarding Data: airport size and annual passenger counts.
  5. Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: the 30-year fixed rate used in the cost-to-buy estimate.
  6. FBI Crime Data Explorer: reported offenses behind the tangible crime cost estimate.
  7. U.S. EPA Air Quality System: five year average air quality index.
  8. FEMA National Risk Index: expected annual loss from natural hazards.
  9. CDC PLACES: disease burden, preventable risk, and barriers to care.
  10. National Center for Education Statistics: school enrollment and assessment inputs behind the school grade.
  11. FCC National Broadband Map: internet and wireless availability.
  12. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and job growth behind the local economy score.
  13. Religious activity uses a proprietary religious signal measurement.