US Counties With the Highest Share Widowed
3,173 US counties ranked by share widowed, from highest to lowest. First are Terrell County, TX (23.3%), Comanche County, KS (17.8%) and Hooker County, NE (16.7%). The middle one of the 3,173 has 6.91%.
What this measures
The percentage of people aged 15 and over whose spouse has died. It mostly follows how old the population is, so it is close to a second measure of a county's age. Source: Census ACS 5-year.
For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.
The 100 highest counties
Every state, highest first
Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.
| Rank | State | % |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | West Virginia | 7.93% |
| 2 | Puerto Rico | 7.85% |
| 3 | Mississippi | 7.06% |
| 4 | Alabama | 6.88% |
| 5 | Arkansas | 6.86% |
| 6 | Kentucky | 6.63% |
| 7 | Florida | 6.51% |
| 8 | South Carolina | 6.5% |
| 9 | Oklahoma | 6.4% |
| 10 | Pennsylvania | 6.37% |
| 11 | Tennessee | 6.34% |
| 12 | Louisiana | 6.31% |
| 13 | Maine | 6.22% |
| 14 | Ohio | 6.16% |
| 15 | Missouri | 6.09% |
| 16 | Delaware | 6% |
| 17 | Hawaii | 5.95% |
| 18 | New Mexico | 5.93% |
| 19 | North Carolina | 5.85% |
| 20 | Indiana | 5.81% |
| 21 | Michigan | 5.8% |
| 22 | Iowa | 5.8% |
| 23 | Rhode Island | 5.73% |
| 24 | South Dakota | 5.7% |
| 25 | Wyoming | 5.64% |
| 26 | Kansas | 5.61% |
| 27 | Illinois | 5.6% |
| 28 | New York | 5.59% |
| 29 | Montana | 5.58% |
| 30 | New Jersey | 5.55% |
| 31 | New Hampshire | 5.51% |
| 32 | North Dakota | 5.5% |
| 33 | Virginia | 5.49% |
| 34 | Maryland | 5.49% |
| 35 | Vermont | 5.43% |
| 36 | Arizona | 5.37% |
| 37 | Connecticut | 5.37% |
| 38 | Wisconsin | 5.36% |
| 39 | Nebraska | 5.33% |
| 40 | Georgia | 5.3% |
| 41 | Nevada | 5.25% |
| 42 | Massachusetts | 5.1% |
| 43 | Oregon | 5.04% |
| 44 | Idaho | 4.93% |
| 45 | Minnesota | 4.89% |
| 46 | Texas | 4.88% |
| 47 | California | 4.74% |
| 48 | Washington | 4.61% |
| 49 | Colorado | 4.11% |
| 50 | Alaska | 4.09% |
| 51 | Utah | 3.51% |
| 52 | District of Columbia | 3.41% |
More on share widowed
- US Counties With the Lowest Share Widowed
- Share widowed by US county: map by year and what it goes with
A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.