Here is something learned from researching and identifying the wealthiest cities in Maryland: The richest places tend to be in Montgomery County, right next to our nation’s capital. Recently, we’ve been analyzing states, identifying their richest cities based on data from the Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey.
This study analyzed 539 cities — what the Census Bureau designates as “places” — in Maryland that had complete data from the Census Bureau, in terms of their median household income, mean (average) household income, median home value, and median property taxes paid per year, to come up with a list of the 50 richest cities in the state.
Read on to find out what the richest city in Maryland is, plus the top 50 wealthiest cities in the state overall.
What Are the Richest Cities in Maryland?
In order to compile this list of the richest cities in Maryland, we sourced key financial data from the Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey. Wielding these datasets, we put together a four-factor scoring system to help identify the wealthiest cities in Maryland:
- Median household income
- Mean (average) household income
- Median home value
- Median property taxes paid
You should be aware of a few oddities that the Census Bureau does with its data. For a number of factors, the Census figures have upper limits, so there’s no exact value for certain factors. For example, for median household income, the Census Bureau has an upper limit of “$250,000+”. For median home value, the upper limit is “$2,000,000+”. For median property taxes paid, the upper limit is “$10,000+”. For these reasons, the mean household income (which is the same as average household income) dataset is crucial because the Census Bureau has exact figures for it. All four of these metrics were scored, added up, and then ranked by the cities’ combined scores.
Another aspect of the Census to point out, and is particularly relevant to Maryland, is the Census-designated place — CDP. The Census, more or less, treats CDPs as cities — their terminology is “place” — and so will this list of the richest cities in Maryland. But if you see cities on this list that you see as, say, neighborhoods, you’re not wrong; they just happen to be treated as cities by the Census Bureau.
You’ll find a table detailing the top 50 richest cities in Maryland and their respective dollar figures for each metric, below:
The No. 1 richest city in Maryland in this ranking is Chevy Chase Village, a CDP in Montgomery County, along the District of Columbia’s northwest border. This is a small place has around 682 households and over 2,000 people. For our purposes, what stands out is the wealth. The median household income in Chevy Chase Village is over $250,000. The average household income is a staggering $524,519 a year. Not surprisingly, the median home value reported is over $2 million. Consequently, households in Chevy Chase Village pay more than $10,000 per year in property taxes.
The No. 2 richest place in Maryland is Martin’s Additions. This is a village in Montgomery County as well, and also along the northwest border of Washington, D.C. This Census-designated place is part of the larger community and has a median household income in excess of $250,000. Like No. 1 Chevy Chase Village, the mean household income here surpasses $500,000. According to Zillow, the median home value in Martin’s Additions is over $1.6 million. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the median property taxes paid by households is over $10,000 a year.
The third richest place in Maryland is Chevy Chase proper, a community of nearly 1,000 households. Indeed, there are several CDPs with Chevy Chase in their names, and all are quite wealthy. Chevy Chase has a median household income in excess of $250,000 per year; as does Chevy Chase Section Five and Chevy Chase Section Three, additional CDPs in the area. All three of these places have average household incomes in excess of $400,000, with Chevy Chase proper having the highest at $474,539.
The incorporated town of Somerset, found in Montgomery County as well, is the No. 4 wealthiest city in Maryland. According to Data USA, the occupational makeup of Somerset includes Management Occupations (18.8% of the workforce), Legal Occupations (18.2% of the workforce), and Business & Financial Operations Occupations (12.1% of the workforce). In Somerset, the median household income surpasses $250,000 a year. The city’s average household income is $419,599. Meanwhile, the reported median home value is well over $1.6 million, and the median property taxes paid per household is over $10,000 a year.
The No. 5 richest place in Maryland is Brookmont, a CDP and unincorporated community that’s, yet again, in Montgomery County. It lies along the Potomac River, northwest of D.C. The top industries here, by employment, are Professional, Scientific, & Technical Services (26.7% of the workforce), Educational Services (14.3% of the workforce), and Public Administration (10% of the workforce). The median household income is over $250,000 in Brookmont, while its average household income is over $430,000 a year. According to Zillow, the median home value in Brookmont is over $1.5 million.