Merced at a Glance
California is known for its giants — sequoias and grizzlies, Mount Whitney and El Capitan, major metros like Los Angeles and San Francisco. But the Golden State’s next colossus might just be one of its smaller cities — Merced.
With its rapid population growth, Merced — a city of 93,692 and the seat of Merced County — is poised to be California’s next boomtown. The relatively affordable housing stock and the distinctly small-town feels have driven nearly 15,000 people to move here since 2010, with more than 7,000 arriving since 2020.
Merced is nestled into California’s San Joaquin Valley, where rich soils stretch from Sacramento to LA between the Coast Range and the Sierra Nevada mountains. Many residents in this region — which encompasses Modesto, Bakersfield and Fresno — make their living in agriculturally based professions. But Merced residents also work in increasingly diverse industries, from manufacturing to earth sciences, and the presence of UC Merced has given the city an academic edge.
Merced is most certainly a commuter city, and high-speed rail — promised to arrive before 2030 — could dramatically increase the number of Bay Area commuters while strengthening the network of smaller cities throughout the Central Valley.
But Merced is hardly an all-work, no-play kinda town. Long known as the Gateway to Yosemite, Merced is the perfect base camp for explorers destined for the wilds of this national park and others nearby, but it’s also only a couple hours from the coast, so Big Sur, Carmel-by-the-Sea and the cultural spoils of San Francisco, Sacramento and San Jose are never far away. Let’s not forget all the fun that can be had in town, either — boating on Lake Yosemite, seeing historic planes at the Castle Air Museum or spoiling yourself with an order of ricotta pancakes from Rainbird. Wherever your pastimes may take you, you’ll find an outlet for them in Merced.
If you’re looking for a Cali town that’s centrally located and affordable with a fun, close-knit feel, Merced may be right for your family. Learn more about the city below in our moving guide to Merced, where we discuss the climate, cost of living, job market, transportation and fun things to do in the region.
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Life in Merced: What to Know Before You Move
Climate and Weather
From mid-May through mid-September, Merced can be contemptibly hot in the daytime but surprisingly cool at night. You can expect highs in the 90s °F — sometimes soaring past the 100-degree mark in July and August — but when that desert sunsets, it takes the heat with it, and temperatures usually drop into the 60s or lower. It’s not uncommon for a 30-degree temperature fluctuation over 24 hours in Merced. It’s like the difference is, um — literally — night and day.
Summer is the dry period in the San Joaquin Valley — the only time you’ll find moisture in the air is if you’re producing it yourself. But there’s no sweating in the winter months in Merced. On average, one to three inches of rain falls each month from November through April, and temperatures range from the mid-30s to the 60s. The average year-round temperature is a cool 62°F, and the annual rainfall usually amounts to no more than 12 inches.
You will occasionally experience freezing temperatures in California’s Central Valley, but snowfall is rare and accumulations even rarer. Head up into the mountains, though, and you’ll find a very different scene. Yosemite can be a snowy wonderland well into May, and Lake Tahoe (just four hours from Merced) is a favorite getaway for skiing.
Wildfires are an increasing threat for many regions in California, but Merced’s is comparatively lower. By FEMA’s assessment, the city is only at moderate risk. What the city is more prone to — thanks to the rivers, creeks and canals — is flooding. Snowmelt from the mountains feeds these waterways, and winter rains can send torrents into the area. Still, it is best to follow all official guidelines for reducing your home’s risk from these natural hazards, as conditions can change unexpectedly for the worse.
Affordable Living in a Small-Town Setting
Merced’s population is certainly growing rapidly, but the city still maintains a small-town feel. And, compared to bigger cities on or near the coast, the impact on your wallet can be smaller, too.
The cost of living in Merced is estimated to be 9% higher than the national average but 40% lower than California’s. Merced’s cost of living is far lower than cities in an around the Bay Area, too — Sacramento’s cost of living index is 127.2, San Jose’s is 231 and the city of San Francisco is nearly 2.5 times the national average.
Housing costs across the Central Valley are similar. The median home value in Merced is $347,700 — within a thousand dollars of prices in Bakersfield and Fresno — and rents average $1,293/month. Real estate prices increase by more than $130K in the Sacramento market, and California’s average is now close to $700,000, but the Bay Area tops them all. In San Francisco, the median home value is a whopping $1.38 million. You can understand why 10% of Merced residents suffer through a 2.5-hour commute to SFO rather than living there.
Work and Economy
One of the stand-out facts about Merced isn’t something a city wants to stand out for — unemployment. Like many cities in the San Joaquin Valley, the unemployment rate in Merced is higher than normal — double the national average, in fact — but the 8.5% rate isn’t unusual for a city so dominated by agriculture.
In fact, overall employment was up 2.4% in the city of 94,000, and many industries increased their payrolls substantially between November of 2023 and 2024. Leisure and hospitality, one of the stronger industries in the area, grew by nearly 3% to employ 7,400 individuals in the area. Education and health services, the third-largest sector, now supplies 13,000 jobs — an increase of 5.7% over the past year. The government — by far the largest single employer — now employs 20,900 — an increase of 6.6% over the previous November. Trade, transportation and utilities dropped 2.1% to a total of 14,200 jobs but held its second-place status, and manufacturing fell 2.9% but kept its employment numbers north of the 10,000 mark.
Much of Merced’s job market revolves around food and distribution, but these provide a foundation for diverse jobs in the area. Manufacturers like Mauser, Fine Line Industries, Wellmade and Werner make the production of everything from food cans to industrial light fixtures central to the Central Valley. While many companies, like APG Solar, Solar City and Sun Therm are helping to fulfil the Golden State’s renewable power supplies.
UC Merced has put the city on the map for natural sciences. The school’s Health Science Research Institute engages with vital questions impacting regional and global health, and a medical school will soon train the region’s next generation of doctors. Undergraduate enrollment now surpasses 8,000 — with students from near and far — and U.S. News & World Report ranks UC Merced #58 among National Universities. This figure is impressive on its own, but especially so since the college is only just now celebrating its 20th anniversary.
But residents are hardly tied down to businesses within Merced for work. 72% of residents are employed outside the city or Merced County. And 10% of residents work all the way in Silicon Valley — a commute that can take more than two hours one-way! Somebody get those super-commuters a cape. Or some high-speed rail, at least. More on that below.
Getting Around Merced and Beyond
With so many regional commuters living in Merced, the city remains definitively car-centric, but that could change when high-speed rail arrives.
The train service will connect cities up and down the Central Valley and metros like L.A., San Francisco, Sacramento, and Las Vegas. Some riders will see their travel times cut nearly in half when the first routes open in 2029.
The initial segment will connect Merced to Bakersfield, which currently takes 2.5 hours by car, 3+ hours by traditional rail and 4-5 hours by bus. High-speed service will whisk you away to this southern Central Valley city in just 90 minutes, and they intend to offer 18 daily roundtrips instead of just the current seven. Swanky new stations are also part of the plan, and the rail will connect more easily with express buses, so you might even find it easier to visit vacation destinations like Lake Tahoe and Reno by rail.
In town, you’ll find a respectable public transit service familiarly known as The Bus, which will take you around the Merced area for just $1.50/ride or take you to another nearby city for $3.00.
If you really want to get out of town, the miniature-sized Merced Regional Airport can get you to — wait for it — Two! Different! Cities! If you want to go farther than either LAX or LAS, though, you’ll want to depart from either SFO, OAK, SJC or STS to GTHO of Merced.
Explore the Unique Charm of Merced
Merced may be known as the Gateway to Yosemite, but this isn’t a town that you just want to pass through on your way to the national parks. You’ll also want to pass through it on your way to the beaches and Lake Tahoe! Seriously though, Merced has a lot going on inside and outside its city limits, so whatever kind of fun you’re in the mood for, Merced is a great place to be.
In a sunny city like this one, it’s easy make plans for outdoor fun, and one of our favorite places to chill out is Lake Yosemite. With no relation to the national park of the same name, this large reservoir on the northeast side of the city is the perfect picnicking spot on the weekends, and fishing, boating and swimming are all permitted here. Want to make it even more of an adventure? Ride your bikes. Merced has a network of bike paths and lanes that can take you from the center of town to UC Merced, right next to Lake Yosemite.
When you want a little more in the way of guided entertainment, visit the Applegate Park Zoo. This small wildlife sanctuary provides a refuge for native California animals, like foxes, bobcats, bears and giant tortoises, who can no longer survive on their own in the wilderness. You’ll also have a chance to meet a couple of resident monkeys, who are clearly just honorary Golden Staters.
But if you want to see wild animals in their native habitats, the Merced National Wildlife Refuge will provide you — and the animals, too — with more than 10,000 pristine acres to explore. There’s a 5-mile auto tour — which is a miracle ride when your child refuses to nap — and four short nature trails when the kids need to burn off steam. Burrowing owls are one of our favorite animals to spy here, but when the sandhill cranes arrive en masse in the winter, we are awestruck.
Merced also has several indoor attractions that deserve celebration. The Castle Air Museum is a true crowd favorite, boasting aircrafts awesome, awkward and unflyable. There’s a Cessna Bamboo Bomber, so-called because of its wooden construction, and there’s also a cool Douglass SBD-4 Dauntless, which sunk 18 enemy warships during WWII. NASA’s Hyper III takes the award for fewest years in service — zero — and most likely to be a giant paper airplane. This one-and-done, remotely operated “lifting body” was an experiment in space flight, and — like so many dreams of grandeur — it was airborne for mere minutes before being grounded forever. What everyone most wants to see at Castle is Air Force One, the plane that served the presidents from Ford to Bush, so do your best impression of your favorite POTUS and climb aboard.
Although Merced is a relatively young city, this 1872 Central Pacific Railroad baby has historic buildings that give it the feel of a more aged metropolis. One of those is the Merced County Courthouse Museum. These old halls of justice were constructed just three years after the city was founded, and the ornate, Italianate building is as spectacular as the museum’s archives are fascinating. A recent exhibition, What’s That For? – The Stories of Obscure Artifacts, showcased the city’s odds, ends and really odd ends.
When you want to get out of town for a quick vacay, you’ll have your pick of destinations if you move to Merced. In just 90 minutes, you could be pulling into your campsite at Yosemite National Park, that is, unless you stop for sandwiches at the Merced Fruit Barn and get distracted by the adorable barnyard animals. If that happens, add 5 minutes to your travel time for the peacock, 8 minutes for the goats and 10 minutes for the tortoise. They’re not fast-moving, you know. Once you’re in the park, you can go hiking through the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, go climbing up the sheer face of El Capitan (if you dare) or go rafting on the Merced River — which, oddly, does not flow through the city of Merced.
There are also fun trips to be had northwest of Merced. Drive up to Sacramento and visit the official State Capitol building or take a tour of the unofficial State Capitol in Fairfield — the Jelly Belly® Factory. When you live in the fruit basket of America, it’s important to honor the bounty of the land by consuming some of it in chewy, sugar-coated form. Consider yourself a patriot.
Continue your I Heart Cali road trip with a tour of the Bay Area or drive down the coast to visit the Monterey Aquarium and Cannery Row. This historic, sardine-packing district now bears little resemblance to the hardscrabble life Steinbeck portrayed in his novel of the same name. Keep your wheels pointed south and you can find yourself soaking up the sun and surf of the Pacific while hanging with sea otters at Big Sur, embracing the local mantra of “do nothing,” after all, you’ve earned it.
Tips to Relocate to Merced
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Get Moving Tips and Resources from the Pros
Take it from the professionals — don’t leave anything to chance when you move. Follow our moving checklist and planner to keep yourself on target and on budget. And dive into the details of moving with Welcome HOME magazine, our exclusive, digital guide to moving. We’ll show you the best ways to pack delicate items, declutter your living space and organize your new home. Worried about how your family will adjust to life in Merced? We’ve got ways to help your family settle in.
If you’re still considering other cities to move to, consult Mayflower’s city guides and state guides to help narrow down your choices. Our Moving Guide to California gives an inside look at life in the Golden State, and we also have guides to cities from San Diego to Sacramento.
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