Best Cities to Live in Wisconsin

Moving to Wisconsin? Check out our guide to Starting a Business in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin is beloved by natives and tourists alike for its lush, diverse geography, world-famous dairy products, and colorful cities. The Badger Street is also a beer drinker’s mecca: home to dozens of breweries, both large and small. If this sounds like your kinda place, check out our overview of Wisconsin’s five best cities to live in for a better idea of where to settle down in the state.

1. Brookfield

Brookfield, a suburb of Milwaukee in Waukesha County, is Wisconsin’s top city. The presence of companies like Fiserv and FedEx account for the city’s strong economy and high median household income.

2. Middleton

#2 Middleton is a modestly sized suburb of the state capital Madison. The city’s motto is “The Good Neighbor City” and Middleton’s friendly residents and small-town charm follow through on that promise. Of note to mustard lovers is the National Mustard Museum, located right in downtown Middleton.

3. Mequon

Our choice for #3 is Mequon, a bucolic lakeshore community in the Milwaukee metropolitan area. For a city its size, Mequon is home to a wide array of parks and nature preserves, over two dozen in all.

4. Sun Prairie

Sun Prairie, Dane County’s second largest city after Madison, is fourth on the list. The city is a quiet alternative to its larger neighbor and a great place to raise a family, as many residents commute to Madison for work.

5. Pewaukee

Rounding out the list is Pewaukee, a pint-sized city in Waukesha County with oodles of Midwestern charm and a high household median income.

Rank	City
1	Brookfield
2	Middleton
3	Mequon
4	Sun Prairie
5	Pewaukee
6	Hudson
7	De Pere
8	Menomonee Falls
9	New Berlin
10	Sheboygan
11	Neenah
12	Eau Claire
13	Oconomowoc
14	La Crosse
15	Appleton
16	Wausau
17	Manitowoc
18	Marshfield
19	Muskego
20	Kaukauna
21	Green Bay
22	Waukesha
23	Chippewa Falls
24	West Bend
25	Menomonie
26	Menasha
27	Fond Du Lac
28	Oshkosh
29	Superior
30	Franklin
31	Stevens Point
32	Wisconsin Rapids
33	Oak Creek
34	Watertown
35	Kenosha
36	Burlington
37	Janesville
38	Racine
39	Beloit
40	Madison
41	Milwaukee

Did your city make the list? Share the good news!

Feel free to share this badge of recognition. Please include attribution to https://www.chamberofcommerce.org/.

Methodology

We ranked a total of 2,509 qualified cities (those with populations above 25,000 and enough data for analysis) by five factors: employment (number of establishments, median earnings); housing (owner-occupied housing with a mortgage, monthly housing costs); quality of life (work commute, poverty levels); education (percentage with a bachelor’s degree or higher); and health (obesity ratios).