US Counties With the Lowest Life Expectancy
3,060 US counties ranked by life expectancy, from lowest to highest. First are Buffalo County, SD (54 years), Dewey County, SD (56.7 years) and Oglala Lakota County, SD (56.9 years). The middle one of the 3,060 has 75.3 years.
What this measures
How long a baby born here would live if today's death rates stayed the same all its life. It sums up death rates now. It is not a prediction for any real child. Source: County Health Rankings.
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 lowest counties
Every state, lowest first
Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.
| Rank | State | years |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | 71.9 years |
| 2 | West Virginia | 72.1 years |
| 3 | Alabama | 73.3 years |
| 4 | Kentucky | 73.3 years |
| 5 | Louisiana | 73.3 years |
| 6 | Tennessee | 73.5 years |
| 7 | Arkansas | 73.7 years |
| 8 | Oklahoma | 73.7 years |
| 9 | New Mexico | 74.4 years |
| 10 | South Carolina | 74.7 years |
| 11 | Indiana | 75.1 years |
| 12 | Ohio | 75.2 years |
| 13 | Missouri | 75.2 years |
| 14 | Georgia | 75.6 years |
| 15 | North Carolina | 75.9 years |
| 16 | Michigan | 76.2 years |
| 17 | Alaska | 76.3 years |
| 18 | Wyoming | 76.4 years |
| 19 | Kansas | 76.4 years |
| 20 | Nevada | 76.4 years |
| 21 | District of Columbia | 76.5 years |
| 22 | Texas | 76.7 years |
| 23 | Arizona | 76.7 years |
| 24 | Delaware | 76.8 years |
| 25 | South Dakota | 76.8 years |
| 26 | Montana | 76.9 years |
| 27 | Pennsylvania | 76.9 years |
| 28 | Maine | 77.2 years |
| 29 | Illinois | 77.5 years |
| 30 | Virginia | 77.6 years |
| 31 | Iowa | 77.8 years |
| 32 | Maryland | 77.8 years |
| 33 | Wisconsin | 77.8 years |
| 34 | North Dakota | 77.8 years |
| 35 | Idaho | 78 years |
| 36 | Oregon | 78 years |
| 37 | Florida | 78.1 years |
| 38 | Nebraska | 78.1 years |
| 39 | Colorado | 78.5 years |
| 40 | Vermont | 78.7 years |
| 41 | Utah | 78.8 years |
| 42 | Washington | 78.8 years |
| 43 | Rhode Island | 78.9 years |
| 44 | New Hampshire | 78.9 years |
| 45 | New Jersey | 79 years |
| 46 | Connecticut | 79.2 years |
| 47 | Minnesota | 79.3 years |
| 48 | New York | 79.4 years |
| 49 | California | 79.4 years |
| 50 | Massachusetts | 79.7 years |
| 51 | Hawaii | 81.4 years |
More on life expectancy
- US Counties With the Highest Life Expectancy
- Life expectancy 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.