Prepper Suitability Index.
Every county in the lower 48 ranked 0–100 on prepper-relevant factors. Click a county for a deep-dive scorecard.
Score color scale
3,109 counties · click any county to open its full scorecard
Top 10 — Best for prepping
Every county in the lower 48 ranked 0–100 on prepper-relevant factors: violence rate, FEMA natural-hazard exposure, population density, water availability, climate, and housing cost. Click any county on the map for a deep-dive scorecard with hazard breakdowns, monthly climate normals, demographics, infrastructure data, and links to land-search tools.
3,109 counties indexed. Methodology and data sources are documented at the bottom of every county page.
Methodology & data sources
Composite score is the equal-weighted average of three national percentile ranks: violence (firearm fatality rate per 100k, County Health Rankings 2024 / CDC WONDER), disasters (FEMA National Risk Index 2023 composite), and density (population per square mile, ACS 2022 + TIGER 2022 land area). Climate normals from NOAA nClimDiv 1991–2020. Demographics, housing, and infrastructure from Census ACS 5-year 2022. All scores are for comparison purposes only and do not constitute advice about where to live.