Imperial vs Salton City

A side-by-side comparison of Imperial and Salton City: population, income, housing, and more.

Imperial and Salton City are places in California. This page compares them across population, income, housing, education, commuting, and how each has changed since 2019.

Imperial has the higher population (20,943 vs 6,244 in Salton City). Imperial has the higher median household income ($83,214 vs $36,915 in Salton City). Imperial has the higher median home value ($344,700 vs $189,800 in Salton City).

Population, income & housing

	Imperial	Salton City
Population	20,943	6,244
Median age	32.9 yrs	35.0 yrs
Median household income	$83,214	$36,915
Median home value	$344,700	$189,800
Median gross rent	$1,396	$1,295
Housing units	6,876	2,628
Homeownership rate	65.5%	87.8%
Bachelor's degree or higher	20.3%	10.3%
Unemployment rate	8.5%	17.9%

Trends (ACS 5-year, 2019–2023)

	Imperial	Salton City
Population	17,454 → 20,943 (+20.0%)	6,250 → 6,244 (-0.1%)
Median household income	$85,654 → $83,214 (-2.8%)	$34,087 → $36,915 (+8.3%)
Median home value	$239,900 → $344,700 (+43.7%)	$132,100 → $189,800 (+43.7%)
Median gross rent	$1,394 → $1,396 (+0.1%)	$980 → $1,295 (+32.1%)

Imperial

Population

17,45420,943

Median household income

$85,654$83,214

Median home value

$239,900$344,700

Median gross rent

$1,394$1,396

Salton City

Population

6,2506,244

Median household income

$34,087$36,915

Median home value

$132,100$189,800

Median gross rent

$980$1,295

Age & race/ethnicity

Age distribution (share)

	Imperial	Salton City
Under 5	8.4%	6.4%
5 to 17	25.7%	22.2%
18 to 24	9.5%	9.2%
25 to 34	9.7%	12.2%
35 to 44	15.1%	14.4%
45 to 54	10.1%	5.8%
55 to 64	11.6%	9.1%
65 to 74	5.8%	14.0%
75 and over	4.2%	6.8%

Race & ethnicity (share)

	Imperial	Salton City
White (non-Hispanic)	10.4%	24.6%
Black or African American	0.8%	0.0%
American Indian & Alaska Native	0.1%	0.3%
Asian	3.7%	0.3%
Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander	0.0%	0.0%
Some other race	0.1%	0.0%
Two or more races	0.6%	0.3%
Hispanic or Latino	84.3%	74.6%

Educational attainment (age 25+)

Share of adults 25+

	Imperial	Salton City
No high school diploma	17.1%	31.3%
High school graduate	25.7%	46.0%
Some college or associate's	36.9%	12.4%
Bachelor's degree	12.8%	5.3%
Graduate or professional degree	7.5%	4.9%

Commute to work

How workers get to work (share)

	Imperial	Salton City
Drove alone	75.1%	89.2%
Carpooled	12.4%	3.4%
Public transit	0.0%	0.0%
Walked	3.1%	2.2%
Bicycle	0.0%	0.0%
Worked from home	9.5%	5.1%
Other means	0.0%	0.0%

Housing

Units in structure (share)

	Imperial	Salton City
1-unit, detached	73.7%	89.5%
1-unit, attached	1.9%	0.8%
2 to 4 units	6.0%	2.8%
5 to 19 units	10.9%	0.8%
20 or more units	4.6%	0.0%
Mobile home & other	3.0%	6.1%

Poverty & households

	Imperial	Salton City
Poverty rate	12.4%	14.3%
Average household size	3.47	2.86
Mean commute (minutes)	18	31
Median year structure built	2001	2002