A members-only social club recently ranked 50 U.S. cities by how intellectual they are. Where do some California cities land?
Maxwell Social, used federal data to rank the 50 most populous U.S. cities by most to least intellectual using seven metrics.
The Cambridge Dictionary
defines intellectual as: "relating to the ability to think, understand, and use ideas through logic and reason rather than emotions."The social club didn't specify what their definition of "intellectual" meant, but it looked at the number of public libraries, museums, and bookstores per 100,000 people, along with other area statistics, including the number of adults over 25 with a professional or graduate degree.
The study also looked at Google search trends from August 2025
to gauge interest in "intellectual activities," such as searches for phrases like "book club," "chess club," or "trivia night."
Along with the publicly available data, the club also surveyed 905 adults on where, if anywhere, they still find "intellectual" community.
Most cities listed in Maxwell Social's study counted some of the surrounding metro areas as part of the city.
Where did California cities place?
What are the most intellectual cities in the U.S.?
San Francisco, including Oakland and Fremont, ranked third on Maxwell's list of the most intellectual cities in the U.S.
Boston, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut, took first and second place, respectively.
Fresno and the Riverside/ San Bernardino/ Ontario-area were listed as the least "intellectually engaged", coming in at No. 49 and 50, respectively.
While San Jose did not place in the top five, it did place at the top in some categories. The city had the highest percentage of adults with a graduate degree at 28.5% and the highest percentage of adult education schools per 100,000 people at 36.9%.
Where the other California cities landed:
- No. 3- San Francisco/Oakland/Fremont
- No. 6- San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara
- No. 19- San Diego/Chula Vista/Carlsbad
- No. 30- Los Angeles/Long Beach/Anaheim
- No. 41- Sacramento/Roseville/Folsom
- No. 49- Fresno
- No. 50- Riverside/San Bernardino/Ontario
The Maxwell survey also asked 905 non-student adults over the age of 22 a variety of questions on how they find intellectual community, including how they prefer to spend their nights out or downtime.
The study found that 51.5% of U.S. respondents say they find intellectual community from podcasts, newsletters, and online communities, while 11% said they had nowhere at all.
It also found that most adults would prefer to trade a night of drinking for other activities such as a chess or game night, philosophy night or book party.
Ernesto Centeno Araujo covers breaking news for the Ventura County Star. He can be reached at ecentenoaraujo@vcstar.com, 805-437-0224 or @ecentenoaraujo on Instagram and X.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Study ranks U.S. cities by least to most intellectual, 7 in California
