Top 18 El Paso Statistics That We’re Pretty Sure You Didn’t Know

Oh, Sun City, how we are so often charmed by your delights.

Also, sometimes you kinda suck -- but look, that's how it is with cities. You love them and you hate them and sometimes you do both at once. No matter where you go, everyone loves to rag on their own city. I guess it keeps you humble.

But sometimes, you can live in a place for three lifetimes and still not come close to knowing everything there is to know about your town. There's a website called city-data.com, and it compiles all this stuff from Census reports, federal documents and God knows where else.

Before we get any further, I can't research each and every claim to tell you if it's absolutely true. Even the site's own disclaimer states:

Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed ... City-data.com does not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of any information on this site.  Use at your own risk.

So, alrighty. We're just going to use this for fun. But I will say that some of the stats I'm about you show you are SO SPECIFIC, they might as well be true. No one is ever going to prove you wrong if you go around spouting this stuff.

So, according to completely random statistics listed on city-data.com...

THE GOOD

1. El Paso ranks 24th on the Biggest Cities list.
2. We're ranked #30 on the cities with the highest average sunshine amount for a city of over 50,000 people.
3. We're the 44th biggest city in America based on the land size within our city limits.
4. El Paso is 19th in Zip Codes with the lowest percentage of residents who have smoked 100+ cigarettes in their lives.
5. Our population has seen a 20.5% increase since 2000.
6. The cost of living index for El Paso is 82.7 (with 100 being the U.S. average).

THE BAD

1. El Paso ranks #2 in cities with the lowest percentage of residents that have visited the dentist in the last year.
2. We're #18 for the top counties with the highest particulate matter air pollution (from 2012).
3. We're the 57th for cities with the top Zip Codes of most alcohol drinking places.
4. As of the day this post was published, there were 1,030 registered sex offenders in El Paso. That's one sex pervert for ever 653 people.
5. The chances of an earthquake striking El Paso are 95% higher than the overall U.S. average.
6. Based on historical data, you are more likely to get in an car accident on Sundays and Mondays than other other days.

THE MESSED UP

1. El Paso ranks 97th in the nation for the largest percent of women working in the following industries: Administrative and support and waste management services. What does that even mean? Is that good or bad? Why are those industries lumped together? That's like saying a football player, a basketball player and an exterminator go together somehow.
2. We're ranked ninth in the nation for Top Zip Codes with the largest percentage of Welsh first ancestries and 21st for cities with Scottish first ancestries. Is there some sort of huge British-y population I don't know about here?
3. We rank 57th on the top Zip Codes with the smallest percentage of taxpayers using paid preparers for filing their 2012 taxes. You can never un-know this devastating statistic. Keep your Turbo Tax and your H&R Block! We do taxes old-school in Chuco Town!
4. There are 72 7-Elevens in El Paso.
5. Every day, because of workers commuting, El Paso's population goes up by 10,828 (or about 1.6%)
6. We know the largest religion in El Paso is Catholicism (43% of the population as of 2010), thanks to a large Hispanic culture. But actually, the next largest group are people who listed "None" as their religion (42% in the same survey).