Oh! Did we win something? Uh. Well, a tip of the flat-billed cap to ye olde Washington Post, anyway, for finding a statistical way to prove what most of us here in Humboldt already know: We is sooooooooo puuuuurty!!! Take that, haterz! Humboldt is Number One!

Well, number two actually — at least in measurable natural beauty terms. Click on over to WaPo’s “map-ticle” “Every County in America, Ranked by Natural Beauty” so you can click-confirm that Humboldt is second only to Ventura County (out of 3,111 ‘Merican counties) when it comes to being a desirable place to be a human. The rankings are based on the federal government’s natural amenities index, “a measure of the physical characteristics of a county area that enhance the location as a place to live” combining “six measures of climate topography, and water that reflect environmental qualities most people prefer.” 

Whatever. We rule. For the record, our region’s mild winters and temperate summers mean that neighboring Mendocino and Del Norte counties also cracked the Top Five (four and five, respectively). Yay, neighbors! You are very pretty, too!

Not-that-long of a story short: Feel good about where you live. Pay little attention to reports of crime you might see on the dumb ol’ internet — those incidents are not the norm. Go outside. At least in America, only Ventura County is better than us, and that place sucks. Hooray!