Columbia is a larger medium-sized city located in the state of Missouri. With a population of 128,555 people and 33 associated neighborhoods, Columbia is the fourth largest community in Missouri.

Columbia real estate is some of the most expensive in Missouri, although Columbia house values don't compare to the most expensive real estate in the U.S.

Also of interest is that Columbia has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.

A relatively large number of people in Columbia telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 7.60% of the workforce works from home. While this may seem like a small number, as a fraction of the total workforce it ranks among the highest in the country. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.

Combining city textures and college town sensibilities, Columbia really has a nice blend of characteristics. While not a huge city, Columbia is big enough to offer a healthy dose of diversion, opportunity, and amenity to its residents and to the thousands of college students who descend on it every fall. Its size and diversity makes Columbia more than just a college town, but removing the students from the equation would undeniably change Columbia’s character and quality of life.

Not only is Columbia a city with many college students, but it also retains many recent graduates who are looking to start new careers, creating a very large population of people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile. That’s because Columbia is full of single people in their 20s and 30s and who have undergraduate or graduate degrees and are starting careers in professional occupations. This makes Columbia a pretty good place for young, educated career starters looking to find many people like themselves, with good opportunities for friendships, socializing, romance, and fun.

One of the benefits of Columbia is that there is very little traffic. The average commute to work is 18.19 minutes, which is substantially less than the national average. Not only does this mean that the drive to work is less aggravating, but noise and pollution levels are lower as a result.

If knowledge is power, Columbia is a pretty powerful place. 55.30% of the adults in Columbia have earned a 4-year college degree, masters degree, MD, law degree, or even PhD. Compare that to the national average of 21.84% for all cities and towns.

The per capita income in Columbia in 2022 was $35,625, which is wealthy relative to Missouri, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $142,500 for a family of four. However, Columbia contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Columbia is a very ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Columbia home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Columbia residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Columbia include German, English, Irish, Italian, and European.

The most common language spoken in Columbia is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Chinese.