Meridian is a medium-sized city located in the state of Mississippi. With a population of 35,052 people and 22 constituent neighborhoods, Meridian is the eighth largest community in Mississippi.
Unlike some cities where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Meridian is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Meridian is a city of service providers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Meridian who work in office and administrative support (11.47%), sales jobs (10.53%), and food service (9.77%).
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Meridian spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 18.03 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the city are less than they would otherwise be.
Meridian is a decent-sized city, yet no one gets to work using public transit, because the city has no real transit system.
The population of Meridian overall has a level of education that is slightly above the US average for all US cities and towns of 21.84%. Of adults 25 and older in Meridian, 21.42% have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Meridian in 2018 was $23,094, which is upper middle income relative to Mississippi, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $92,376 for a family of four. However, Meridian contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Meridian is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Meridian home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Meridian residents report their race to be Black or African-American, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Meridian include English, Irish, German, Scots-Irish, and African.
The most common language spoken in Meridian is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Langs. of India.