2025 Compare Cities Rankings:
Merced, CA vs Olympia, WA

#79 America's Best and Worst Cities for Crime (Mid-Size Metro Areas)

#289 Best Green Cities

#328 2005 Best Places to Live

#1 Most Secure Places to Live in the U.S. (Mid-Size Metro Areas)

#4 Most Secure Places to Live 2011 (Mid-Size Cities)

#10 Safest Places from Natural Disasters

#16 2005 Best Places to Live

#36 Best Green Cities

#49 America's Best and Worst Cities for Crime (Mid-Size Metro Areas)

Merced is totally slept on - you want a little bit of everything CA has to offer, at a fraction of the price of other CA cities? Merced is the place to go. The town  More

Good place to live. More affordable than most of california. The city is growing and there is alot of business and growth here. Moved from the Bay area years ago and  More

Great place to live. Lots of progress and changes coming to the city. Great place to raise a family. UC Merced is expanding and businesses are investing. Downtown is  More

We moved here from Kitsap Bremerton/Silverdale WA area and this beats it all the way in all material ways. The only reason not to give it 5 stars is the cost of  More

The city is horrible. The business have been chased out by homeless. The city government makes it for difficult for businesses to thrive. If you like what Seattle is  More

Having lived all over the world we decided to retire in Olympia and live on the Puget Sound. Yes it rains but the weather can change dramatically in a day with sun and  More