Also known as: Desmoines Metro Authority
Des Moines is a middle-income mid-sized city of 212,421.
Des Moines sits at the confluence of the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers in Polk County, and has the slightly unusual distinction of being both the state capital and, by a comfortable margin, the largest city in Iowa — a combination that gives it a civic density most comparably sized American cities do not carry. According to Census ACS 5-Year 2024 data, the city's population stands at 212,421, a figure that places it in a category of mid-sized cities large enough to sustain genuine urban infrastructure but small enough that the infrastructure remains, on the whole, navigable.
Demographics and Age Profile
The median age in Des Moines is 34.6 years, according to Census ACS 5-Year 2024, which puts the city firmly in the range demographers tend to describe as "young professional." Of the total population, 49,229 residents are under 18, and 58,630 fall in the 18-to-34 bracket — a distribution that shapes everything from the housing market to the kinds of civic organizations that find purchase here. The city's racial composition, per Census ACS 5-Year 2023, includes 142,098 white residents, 25,577 Black residents, 13,265 Asian residents, and 33,996 Hispanic or Latino residents. There are 90,085 total households, of which 48,264 are family households.
Housing and Affordability
One of the more quietly remarkable facts about Des Moines is how its housing costs relate to its incomes. The home-price-to-income ratio, derived from Census income and housing data, is 3.0 — a figure that housing economists generally regard as the boundary between "affordable" and "stretched." Rent, on average, consumes 19.2 percent of household income, which the same derived dataset classifies as affordable. In an era when many American cities have watched that rent-to-income ratio climb past 30 percent, Des Moines's 19.2 percent is the kind of number that tends to surprise people who have been following national housing coverage. The median household income, per Census ACS 5-Year 2023, is $63,966.
Air Quality
The EPA's AQI Annual Summary for 2024 recorded 366 days of air quality monitoring in Des Moines. Of those, 247 were classified as "good" days and 119 as "moderate." There were zero days classified as unhealthy for sensitive groups, unhealthy, very unhealthy, or hazardous. The maximum AQI recorded during the year was 93, and the median AQI was 40. For a city of this size situated in an agricultural region — where seasonal particulate and ozone events are not uncommon — the absence of any unhealthy-category days in 2024 is a notable data point, though a single year's record is not a trend.
Broadband Access
According to FCC Broadband Data Collection figures as of June 2025, broadband coverage in Des Moines is effectively universal at the lower speed thresholds. One hundred percent of the city's 104,410 housing units have access to service at 25/3 Mbps, 100/20 Mbps, and 250/25 Mbps. Coverage at the 1,000/100 Mbps tier reaches 73.1 percent of units — a figure that reflects the ongoing, uneven rollout of gigabit infrastructure in urban cores, where the last several percentage points tend to be the most expensive to close.
Education
Des Moines hosts six colleges and universities, per NCES IPEDS 2022 data. Among them, Drake University stands out in the College Scorecard data: it reports an average SAT score of 1,292, an admission rate of 63.85 percent, and a completion rate of 75.68 percent. In-state and out-of-state tuition are identical at $52,130, which is a pricing structure more common among private institutions. Median earnings for Drake graduates, per College Scorecard, are reported in the dataset, reflecting the university's positioning as a regional professional school with particular strength in law and pharmacy.
The city also supports 73 licensed childcare centers, according to state facility records, ranging from school-based programs to center-based care. Facilities include Adventure Club, All Star Day Care, and dozens of others distributed across the city's neighborhoods — a supply that reflects both the city's relatively young population and the practical demands of a two-income household economy.
Civic and Cultural Infrastructure
Des Moines has 10 arts organizations registered with the IRS, including the Des Moines Community Orchestra and StageWest Theater Company, among others. The city's civic service organization landscape includes 10 registered groups, among them United Way of Central Iowa, which operates at a scale that extends well beyond the city limits into the broader central Iowa region.
There are 116 churches registered as exempt organizations with the IRS in Des Moines, spanning a range of denominations and faith traditions that reflects the city's demographic breadth. Two animal welfare organizations operate here — both affiliated with the Animal Rescue League of Iowa — per IRS Exempt Organizations Business Master File data.
The chamber of commerce serving the downtown core is the Des Moines Downtown Chamber of Commerce, identified through the IRS Exempt Organizations BMF.
Attractions
The city has 33 recorded attractions in the immediate area. The Iowa Hall of Pride, a museum, sits 0.4 miles from the city center. The World Food Prize Hall of Laureates, also a museum, is 0.6 miles out. The State Capitol building is among the nearby landmarks — a structure that, given Des Moines's role as the state capital, is less a tourist attraction than a working fact of daily civic life, though it functions as both.
Climate
Weather data from the NOAA ACIS network, drawn from the Des Moines International Airport station 4.5 miles from the city center, shows an average annual temperature of 52.7 degrees Fahrenheit and annual precipitation of 35.6 inches. Iowa's continental climate produces genuine seasonal variation — winters that are cold enough to matter and summers that are warm enough to notice — and the precipitation figure reflects a region that receives meaningful moisture across the year rather than concentrating it in a single season.
Banking
The FDIC Institutions and Branches database records multiple bank branches operating in Des Moines, including a Two Rivers Bank & Trust branch at 3025 Ingersoll Avenue and a JPMorgan Chase branch among others. The presence of both community banking institutions and large national banks in the same city reflects a financial services landscape that has not yet fully consolidated to the point where local alternatives have disappeared.
Municipal Governance
The city operates under a municipal code maintained through Municode. The zoning framework, like those of most Iowa municipalities, derives its authority from state enabling legislation — the general structure under which Iowa cities exercise land-use regulation. The Des Moines Municipal Code is accessible at https://library.municode.com/ia/west-des-moines-city-iowa.
Further Reading
- Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates — https://data.census.gov
- NCES, Common Core of Data 2022 — https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/
- FEMA, Disaster Declarations — https://www.fema.gov/disaster/declarations