Who lives in Duluth, Minnesota

Duluth is a city of roughly 86,772 wrapped around the western tip of Lake Superior, the inland end of a shipping lane that moves iron ore and grain out to the world. The population is overwhelmingly White, about 85% against a national 56%, which is the single loudest fact about who lives here and a familiar shape for the Northland and the Iron Range that feeds the port. Evangelical Protestant identity runs less than half the national rate, near 12% versus 26%, closer to the Upper Midwest's Lutheran and Catholic grain than to the country at large.

The age curve carries a sharp young bump: the 18-to-24 band sits near 20% against a national 13%, the footprint of the University of Minnesota Duluth and its roughly nine thousand students stacked on top of an otherwise middle-aged, slightly-younger-than-average town with a mean age near 45.

How fast people here decide, and how much risk they will carry, both sit close to the national middle. Duluthians are a touch more likely to weigh a choice deliberately than to jump at it, but the gap is small and not the story.

Personality reads close to baseline across the board. Openness to the new runs a hair under average, curiosity tempered by a practical Northern streak, and the other four traits barely move. The real distance in this audience is behavioral, in how they handle their health and how openly they talk about their minds, not in temperament.

Environmental concern, corporate trust, and the pull toward local shops all track the national middle, which is its own kind of finding in a town that markets itself as an outdoor capital: the affinity for trails and clean water does not translate into a measurably greener consumer.

Ethical shopping shows the clearest tilt, with close to 46% making the occasional values-based choice against 41% nationally, though the strict end runs thin. People will reach for the better option when it is in front of them, without organizing their whole cart around it.

Facebook is the front door, claiming about 31% of primary-platform attention, with YouTube and Instagram behind it and the rest of the field near national levels. This is a reachable audience on the platforms that already carry small-city and regional life.

On format, short video edges ahead with long video and a mixed diet close behind, no strong single preference to build around. One thing to lean on: receptivity to advertising runs neutral rather than hostile, near 49% against 43%, so a clear, plain message gets a fair hearing instead of a reflexive eye-roll.

Spending is price-first and steady, with quality the clear runner-up, the ordinary arithmetic of a working port-and-service economy. Nothing in what motivates a purchase strays far from the national pattern.

Buying cadence skews a little quieter, with the weekly-shopper share running several points below national and the occasional band running above. Saving habits sit close to typical, with a smaller aggressive-saver group than the country carries, the mark of a place where incomes are middling and the budget gets stretched across a long winter.

This is where Duluth separates from the country. About 51% lean preventive in how they handle healthcare, against roughly 42% nationally, a posture that fits a town whose largest employers are the Essentia and St. Luke's systems and whose habit is to catch a problem early. Health awareness runs a few points high too, with most people paying attention without tipping into obsession.

The other standout is candor about mental wellness. The share who keep that strictly private sits near 11% against 18% nationally, and the open and advocate ends both run above average. Talking about what is going on inside is closer to normal here than guarded.