Best PlacesVermilion Parish, LA Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in Vermilion Parish, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. The averages are not the whole story, and the strongest areas score well above them. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.

See the map of best neighborhoods

Vermilion Parish ranks 2,563rd of 3,144 U.S. counties on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on low property taxes by a wide margin, and state infrastructure ranks lowest.

#2,563
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 Vermilion Parish

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Vermilion Parish 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.

The best areas in Vermilion Parish

The parts of Vermilion Parish, ranked by the BestNeighborhood standard score across every neighborhood, highest scoring first. Each note says how that part differs from the rest of the county.

#1

Maurice

It is quieter, schools score higher, and more adults hold degrees.

WorseBetter
23rd nationally
#2

Erath

Crime runs lower, though disaster risk is higher.

WorseBetter
19th nationally
#3

Abbeville

More homes sit empty and local pay stretches less far.

WorseBetter
11th nationally
#4

Kaplan

Homes cost less, though incomes run lower.

WorseBetter
8th nationally

Scores across Vermilion Parish run from about the 1st to the 69th percentile nationally. The map is where that becomes a choice of area.


Vermilion Parish's strengths and weaknesses

Top 5%Low property taxes
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 Vermilion Parish with other counties.

Where Vermilion Parish ranks high

  • Low property taxBetter than 96% of counties
  • Housing crash safetyBetter than 95% of counties
  • Cell coverageBetter than 83% of counties
  • Internet speedBetter than 82% of counties
  • Cheap childcare$637 a month, better than 69% of counties

Where Vermilion Parish ranks low

  • State infrastructureBetter than only 1% of counties
  • Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 1% of counties
  • Disaster safetyBetter than only 3% of counties
  • State fiscal healthBetter than only 8% of counties
  • Heat safetyBetter than only 11% of counties

What it costs to buy a home in Vermilion Parish

A household needs to earn about $41,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Vermilion Parish home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $67,044, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.

Income to buy the median home
$41,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$968
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $170,285 home
Median rent
$814
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$868
Property tax$43
Homeowners insurance$57

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 Vermilion Parish's effective rate of 0.30%, 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 7 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 Vermilion Parish

Vermilion Parish's age mix sits close to the national median.

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

Residents by age

Under 1823%
18 to 3420%
35 to 4919%
50 to 6420%
65 and older18%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Vermilion Parish.


Who works in Vermilion Parish, and how

Work in Vermilion Parish centers on health care & social and retail trade. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and employment has held roughly flat.

Work from home
7%
below the national average
Unemployment
4.6%
about the national average
Job growth
−0.9%
/y 2019-2023, slower than the national pace

Largest industries

Health care & social16%
Retail trade14%
Mining & oil & gas10%
Education8%
Construction8%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 86%
  • Work from home 7%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 7%

Life in Vermilion Parish

Vermilion Parish has fewer places to eat and drink per resident than most counties and less parkland per resident than most counties. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Vermilion Parish and thins out in others, which the map shows.

Places to eat and drink
175
restaurants, bars, and fast food, about 30.5 per 10,000 residents, more than 13% of counties
Coffee shops
16
about 2.8 per 10,000 residents, more than 16% of counties
Parkland
140 acres
about 2.4 acres per 1,000 residents, more than 29% of counties

Is Vermilion Parish growing, and who is moving in?

Vermilion Parish has lost about 3% of its population over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from the rest of the Lafayette, LA metro.

Population growth
-3%
over the decade, vs about 6% nationally
Population
57,641
down from 59,534
Population by year. Source: U.S. Census Population Estimates Program.

Where new residents come from

The rest of the Lafayette, LA metro897 / yr
Houston, TX339 / yr
El Paso, TX187 / yr
Iberia Parish, LA153 / yr
Baton Rouge, LA145 / yr

Where people leaving Vermilion Parish go

The rest of the Lafayette, LA metro1,209 / yr
Houston, TX325 / yr
Baton Rouge, LA157 / yr
Pensacola, FL121 / yr
Midland, TX120 / yr

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


What the weather is like in Vermilion Parish, month by month

Vermilion Parish sees roughly 95 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 92 degrees. January highs sit near 65, with lows near 42. The comfortable stretch runs February through May and October through December.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January65°52°42°
April79°68°58°
July92°81°74°
October83°70°58°

Flying in and out of Vermilion Parish

The nearest airport, Lafayette Regional/Paul Fournet Field, is about 18 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Louis Armstrong New Orleans International, about 114 miles away.

Nearest airport
LFT
Lafayette Regional/Paul Fournet Field, about 18 miles
Airport size
Nonhub
178th-busiest in the US, 15 nonstop destinations
Average drive
25 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Vermilion Parish

Schools across Vermilion Parish average a C+, better than 58% 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 Vermilion Parish school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


Vermilion Parish 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 Vermilion Parish against the other 3,143 counties.


Who Vermilion Parish suits

Families

Schools beat 58% of counties.

See the families priority ↑

Remote workers

Internet is fast and widely advertised and 7% already work from home.

See the remote-work priority ↑

Retirees

The weather beats 57% of counties and it is quieter than 66%.

See the retirees priority ↑


Common questions about living in Vermilion Parish

Is Vermilion Parish a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Vermilion Parish ranks 2,563rd of 3,144 counties. It scores highest on low property taxes, a stable housing market, and cell coverage, and lowest on state infrastructure and car insurance costs. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Vermilion Parish expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $170,285. The overall cost of living runs about 22% below the national average. Set against a $67,044 median income, cost of living beats 63% of counties.

Is Vermilion Parish safe?

Vermilion Parish is safer than 22% of counties. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $607 per resident a year.

What is the weather like in Vermilion Parish?

July highs average about 92 degrees, and January highs near 65 with lows near 42. That works out to about 95 pleasant days a year, more than 57% of counties.

What are the best neighborhoods in Vermilion Parish?

Using the default rankings, the highest-scoring areas are Maurice, Erath, and Abbeville. The ranked list and the re-weightable map above let you re-sort them for your own priorities.


Compare Vermilion Parish with other counties


Sources and methodology

Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Vermilion Parish. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Vermilion Parish 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.

Vermilion Parish detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

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

Vermilion Parish 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.