Fresno ranked near the bottom of a new study examining opportunities for intellectual life outside the classroom in the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas.

Maxwell Social placed Fresno among the three lowest-ranked metros in its “America’s Most Intellectual Cities” study, alongside Riverside and Las Vegas. Houston and Phoenix rounded out the bottom five.

The ranking does not attempt to measure residents’ intelligence. Instead, researchers created an “Intellectual Life Score” based on seven factors, including museums and historical sites, public libraries, the share of adults with graduate or professional degrees, colleges and universities, adult-education schools, bookstores, and Google searches for intellectual activities.

Searches included terms such as “book club,” “philosophy lecture,” “chess club,” “trivia night,” and “author talk.” The study examined average monthly search volume from August 2025 through July 2026 and adjusted the figures based on population.

Researchers used federal data from sources including the U.S. Census Bureau, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. The study cautioned that its index measures institutional and online-search indicators of intellectual life and may not capture informal communities or activities.

Top 5 Includes San Francisco

Boston topped the ranking with an Intellectual Life Score of 80.3, followed by Hartford, Connecticut, at 72.3 and the San Francisco metro area at 67.7. Providence, Rhode Island, and Pittsburgh completed the top five.

The study was paired with a national survey of 905 non-student adults age 22 and older about intellectual and social connections after leaving school.

Forty-five percent of respondents said they felt intellectually lonely, while 61% said stimulating conversation was more difficult to find than when they were in school. More than half, 53%, said making intellectually curious friends as an adult was harder than dating.

The survey also found interest in more idea-focused social settings. Sixty-eight percent said they increasingly wanted smarter social environments as they grew older, while 66% said they would trade a night of drinking for a night centered on ideas.

Maxwell Social said the rankings cover only the 50 metropolitan areas included in the study and should not be interpreted as a ranking of every U.S. city.