Top 10 Divorce Capitals in the United States

Summary: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has named the 10 capitals of divorce, and no Los Angeles is not listed as one of them.

After reading the news, you’ve probably heard that Johnny Depp and Amber Heard divorced. So did Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. And Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck. As did Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor. And the list goes on and on…

While Hollywood may not be a town that keeps its married couples together, Los Angeles is actually not one of the divorce capitals of the United States. In fact, the divorce capitals are mostly in Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and New Mexico; and none of the cities are major metropolises. Perhaps people in big cities hold on to their marriages or maybe they’re not just getting married all together, but either way, the overall divorce rate is declining, according to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

However, that doesn’t mean that divorces aren’t happening. In fact, there are some cities with alarmingly high divorce rates, and the Post-Dispatch compiled the list of the top ten, based on the number of divorcees to how many residents lived in the city.

Top 10 Divorce Capitals in the United States:

10. Hamilton, Ohio (16.6% divorce rate)

9. Evansville, Indiana (16.6% divorce rate)

8. Flint, Michigan (16.8% divorce rate)

7. Tamarac, Florida (17.1% divorce rate)

6. Canton, Ohio (17.1% divorce rate)

5. Santa Fe, New Mexico (17.1% divorce rate)

4. Melbourne, Florida (17.3% divorce rate)

3. Kokomo, Indiana (17.6% divorce rate)

2. Largo, Florida (17.7% divorce rate)

1. Anderson, Indiana (18.7% divorce rate)

Based on the list, there must be something weird in the Florida water, and I’m not just talking about alligators. Florida’s Tamarac, Melbourne, and Largo took the seventh, fourth and second spots, respectively; and each of the cities had populations of less than 100,000.

Tamarac has a 17.1% divorce rate with 10,812 divorcees within a population of 63,227. Melbourne has a 17.3% divorce rate with 13,497 divorcees for its 78,012 population. Largo’s population of 79,737 has 14,114 divorcees, making the divorce rate 17.7%.

Indiana also had three cities make the list–Evansville, Kokomo, and Anderson.

Evansville has 19,956 divorcees and only 120,212 people; Kokomo has 10,218 divorcees amongst 58,054 residents; and Anderson has 10,403 divorcees but only 55,630.

Celebrity divorce attorney Laura Wasser told Lawcrossing that although she has seen ugly cases, not all divorces have to be brutal.

“If you can get two people through their divorce without having to spend an inordinate amount of money on your fees and with them each having an equitable amount of time with their children and both of them being able to continue with the type of lifestyle that they became accustomed to in the marriage, that’s a win,” Wasser said.