Columbia is a relatively large city located in the state of South Carolina. With a population of 142,416 people and 85 associated neighborhoods, Columbia is the second largest community in South Carolina.Columbia is a military town: the armed forces employs 7.47% of the workforce, making the military a major focus of life in the city. In the civilian sector, Education and Healthcare are important in the local economy and are the city’s largest civilian employers, employing 14.07% and 12.97% of the civilian workforce respectively. Also of interest is that Columbia has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US. One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 9.82% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes. Columbia is made interesting by being both a reasonably big city and having a major college student population: students here will find that the city provides a lot of amenities, culture, and opportunities for them. Columbia is more than just a college town, however, though the thousands of students certainly are a major part of the character of the city, as well as a contributor to the local economy. Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Columbia spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 18.96 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the city are less than they would otherwise be.The citizens of Columbia are among the most well-educated in the nation: 46.13% of adults in Columbia have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree, whereas the average US city has 21.84% holding at least a bachelor's degree. The per capita income in Columbia in 2022 was $38,087, which is upper middle income relative to South Carolina and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $152,348 for a family of four. However, Columbia contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Columbia is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Columbia home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Columbia residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Columbia include German, English, Irish, Italian, and Scots-Irish. The most common language spoken in Columbia is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Langs. of India.
