North Dakota, by the numbers

People and buying power

North Dakota has 4 metropolitan statistical areas centered inside it; the largest is Fargo, ND-MN with 259,459 residents. Each has its own page below.

Money first: median household income in North Dakota is $76,657, 5 percent below the national figure. The typical owner-occupied home is valued at $249,900, 25 percent below the national figure. For a business that sells to homeowners, that combination sets the ceiling on what a job is worth.

Who lives here matters as much as how many. A labor force of 417,808 carries an unemployment rate of 2.8%, 2 points below the US share. The median resident is 35.9 years old, 3 years below the national median. 62.9% of homes are lived in by their owners, 2 points below the US share. The share of adults with a bachelor's or above is 32.7%, 3 points below the US share.

Relative to Fargo, ND-MN, household income in North Dakota is about the same as the Fargo metro figure, home values are 14 percent lower than the Fargo metro figure, and businesses per 1,000 residents are 15 percent denser than the Fargo metro figure.

Establishments by trade

By the Census Bureau's count North Dakota supports 25,402 employer establishments. Set against the population that is 32.4 per 1,000 residents, 30 percent above the national figure, against 25 nationally. The home-services trades that most often advertise locally number 1,331 establishments, a 5.2% share, about the same as the US share. The table breaks out the categories that spend the most on local advertising; restaurants is the biggest of them at 1,343.

Index: local share of all establishments divided by the US share; above 1 means the trade is more common here than nationally.

Crowded categories in North Dakota: road and paving contractors, concrete contractors, child day care services and electrical contractors. The sharpest example is road and paving contractors: 61 establishments, 2.2 times the share seen nationally. By contrast physicians' offices, self-storage operators, grocery stores and legal services are comparatively scarce in North Dakota. Physicians' offices are the thinnest at 181, about 27% of the national share. Plumbing and HVAC contractors, roofing contractors and specialty trade contractors sit near their national proportions.

Relative to population the leaders are restaurants (171.1 per 100,000 residents), general freight trucking and personal care services. Restaurants (1,343), general freight trucking (438) and personal care services (413) are the biggest categories by establishment count. Taken as groups, the strongest relative to the US mix are automotive businesses (about the same as the national share) and the weakest are medical and dental practices (about 43% of).

How to advertise in North Dakota

Because road and paving contractors, concrete contractors and child day care services are over-represented, a new entrant in those categories competes for a fixed pool of searches against many established profiles. Reviews, photos, response time and a page that answers the exact query are what move the needle; simply outbidding is expensive. Scarcity in physicians' offices, self-storage operators and grocery stores cuts the other way: fewer rivals per search, cheaper clicks, and a chance to become the default answer in the map results with a modest, steady effort. Younger residents (median age 3 years below the national median) split their attention between search, social feeds and AI assistants, so the presence has to be in all three.