Boulder is America's brainiest city -- and has the best quality of life, too! -- says Portfolio.com

Boulder, Colorado.

Less than five months after declaring the community's quality of life the best of any midsized city in the U.S., the business publication now says Boulder has the "strongest brainpower" of the nation's largest 200 markets. And that's not the only reason Boulderites may be getting a big head these days...

As you'll remember, The Daily Beast chose Boulder as America's brainiest city back in August.

Not that we're accusing Portfolio.com of cheating. Staffers there appear to have done some serious number crunching -- but how did they come to their conclusion? Reporter G. Scott Thomas writes:

The study assigned point values to five rungs of an educational ladder, ranging from high-school dropouts to holders of advanced degrees. The score for a given market depended on the percentage of adult residents (25 or older) on each rung. The higher the score, the stronger a market's collective brainpower.

Here's the Boulder data:

Brainpower index: 3.941 Graduate and/or Professional Degree: 25.96% Bachelor's Degree: 31.98% Associate Degree or Some College: 24.57% High School Diploma: 11.32% High School Dropouts: 6.17%

Population 2009: 303,482
25+ population 2009: 189,084

Want to peruse even more facts and figures? Here's a comparison of all 200 places scrutinized by Portfolio.com. If, after reading all of it, you're still not convinced that Boulder is the brainiest, you clearly should move to Merced, California.

Which finished last on Portfolio.com's list, by the way.

More from our Business archives: "Boulder named 4th best city for the next decade: Check out the virtual ego boost."