City-Data is a private

Privately held company

A privately held company or close corporation is a business company owned either by non-governmental organizations or by a relatively small number of shareholders or company members which does not offer or trade its company stock to the general public on the stock market exchanges, but rather the...

 Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

-based social networking and information website known for its comprehensive profiling system of U.S. cities, containing everything from sex offender lists to general city guides. City-data.com is owned and operated by Advameg, Inc. According to Quantcast

Quantcast

Quantcast is a California based company that provides publishers and marketers with the ability to understand, deliver and reach their best audiences at a massive scale...

, which directly measures the traffic to City-data.com, as of March 19, 2010, it is ranked as 94th largest website in the United States with over 11 million visitors per month and it is visited by a "fairly wealthy, more educated, adult audience." The website was created in 2003.

U.S. cities, counties, zip codes, and neighborhoods are profiled and compared using data about race, income

Income

Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...

, education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

, crime

Crime

Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

, weather

Weather

Weather is the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate...

, housing

House

A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...

, map

Map

A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....

s, air pollution

Air pollution

Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or cause damage to the natural environment or built environment, into the atmosphere....

, religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

s and any other information deemed vital. In addition, the website contains detailed information and articles about other features of local interest, such as schools and their demographics and test scores, hospitals, libraries, tourist attractions, local businesses, restaurant inspection findings, building permits, bridge conditions, hotels, water systems, airports, cell phone towers, property tax assessments, and car accidents. The site allows users to obtain home value estimates and see recent home sales and search for over 14 million businesses. In addition, it contains multiple tools, such as a gasoline usage calculator for trips and mortgage calculator

Mortgage Calculator

Mortgage calculators are used to help a current or potential real estate owner determine how much they can afford to borrow on a piece of real estate...

s.

City-data.com has been featured on CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

, in Investor's Business Daily

Investor's Business Daily

Investor's Business Daily is a national newspaper in the United States, published Monday through Friday, that covers international business, finance, and the global economy...

, WABC-TV

WABC-TV

WABC-TV, channel 7, is the flagship station of the Disney-owned American Broadcasting Company located in New York City. The station's studios and offices are located on the Upper West Side section of Manhattan, adjacent to ABC's corporate headquarters, and its transmitter is atop the Empire State...

, Bay News 9

Bay News 9

Bay News 9 is a cable news television network located in St Petersburg, Florida. It currently serves the Tampa Bay Area including Hillsborough, Pinellas, Manatee, Polk, Pasco, Hernando, and Citrus counties...

 and referenced by The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, Newsweek

Newsweek

Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

, The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

, USA Today

USA Today

USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

, Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

, Chicago Tribune

Chicago Tribune

The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...

, San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Chronicle

thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

, The Boston Globe

The Boston Globe

The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...

, The Miami Herald

The Miami Herald

The Miami Herald is a daily newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company headquartered on Biscayne Bay in the Omni district of Downtown Miami, Florida, United States...

  among others. City-data.com has been referenced in 122 books.

City-data.com contains very active local and general Internet forum

Internet forum

An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...

 with over 11 million posts and 700,000 registered members. It has been started near the end of 2005. City-data.com forum topics have been referenced by and the subjects of multiple newspaper articles by publications such as Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

,
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is the major city-wide newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri. Although written to serve Greater St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch is one of the largest newspapers in the Midwestern United States, and is available and read as far west as Kansas City, Missouri, as far south as...

, Pacific Daily News

Pacific Daily News

The Pacific Daily News, formerly Guam Daily News, is a morning-edition newspaper based in Hagåtña, Guam. It is owned by Gannett Corporation and is published seven days a week...

, KRQE

KRQE

KRQE, digital channel 13, is the CBS-affiliated television station serving the Albuquerque, New Mexico television market; the station is owned by LIN TV Corporation and is sister station to Fox affiliate KASA-TV...

 News 13, Columbia Missourian

Columbia Missourian

The Columbia Missourian, or the Missourian, is a daily morning newspaper published in Columbia, Missouri. It is one of two daily newspapers in Columbia...

, and The Salt Lake Tribune

The Salt Lake Tribune

The Salt Lake Tribune is the largest-circulated daily newspaper in the U.S. city of Salt Lake City. It is distributed by Newspaper Agency Corporation, which also distributes the Deseret News. The Tribune — or "Trib," as it is locally known — is currently owned by the Denver-based MediaNews Group....

.

In 2010, because of a post on the People Search forum, a mother and son reunited 17 years after the son was kidnapped.