Study names Knoxville best city in TN for single women

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — As Beyoncé once said, "All the single ladies, now put your hands up," especially if you live in Knoxville.

According to a recent study from Zippia, a career services site, Knoxville is the best city for single women in Tennessee. 

Using Census data, researchers looked at every single city in the nation with at least 5,000 people and based their results on:

• Population density (the number of people living in an area per square mile)
• Percent of population that’s male vs. female (closer to a 50-50 ratio is better)
• Median age
• Number of unmarried people in each city
• Number of bars per capita (number of bars per person)
• Number of farmers markets per capita (number of farmers markets per person)

With about 130,000 unmarried people, dozens of bars and plentiful farmers markets, the Scruffy City came out on top for the state.

Unfortunately, Knoxville did not crack the list of top 10 cities for single women in the nation, but don't feel too bad about those results. 

The study found the South generally did not rank very high, but at least it did better than Hawaii, which was ranked as the worst state for single women.

One major positive for Knoxville was that this study also showed a significant number of cities on the list were college towns.   

So you've got the mom & pop coffee shops and the college town vibes, the cutesy Farmers Markets and the abundance of wine bars. 

And yet ... 

Many of you slid hard into WBIR's Facebook comments to let us know that hey, you're single, and Knoxville ain't the most romantic place in the world. 

We hear you there, and no, it was not a typo.

But what if you were single and not really looking to switch things up? Would Knoxville be a good place to be single if you wanted to stay single?

We caught up with some single ladies over at the University of Tennessee who largely agreed with the study.  

These young women cited Knoxville's safety, proximity to the outdoors and lively bar scene as reasons why they weren't rushing into relationships. 

Now, these could be the optimistic musings of college kids. Except that it's this exact demographic that the Zippia study found was making college towns great places to be single.  

In most of the towns surveyed, the number one spots to be single in every state were college towns. Tennessee wasn't an exception. 

So you could take away from the study that Knoxville is a great place to be single. Or you can zoom out a little and realize what the study actually suggests: college girls across the country are happy, thriving and more likely to grab a group of friends over a boyfriend if they want to have a fun night out. 

If you don't like it or he hasn't put a ring on it, you could always consider moving to one of the top 10 cities.

1. Minneapolis, MN
2. College Park, MD
3. Somerville, MA
4. Tempe, AZ
5. Clemson, SC
6. Rochester, NY
7. Ypsilanti, MI
8. Conshohocken, PA
9. Boone, NC
10. Madison, WI

For the full study, visit Zippia's website.