Best Halloween Cities List Crowns NYC King

NEW YORK CITY — It's not Sleepy Hollow or Amityville or even Halloween Town. New York City is the Halloween capital of the U.S., taking the top spot on WalletHub's 2017 "Best Places for Halloween" list.

With its relatively low crime rate, easily walkable neighborhoods and high concentration of costume shops, New York beat out the other 99 largest cities in the U.S. on the personal finance website's annual ranking.

The city is No. 1 when it comes to "trick-or-treater friendliness," since it has high population density, a low pedestrian fatality rate and a large number of "potential trick-or-treat stops" for kids seeking candy next Tuesday, according to WalletHub's ranking.

It's also No. 2 for "Halloween fun," with the most costume shops per capita and the eighth-most chocolate shops per capita. Americans are expected to spend $9.1 billion on Halloween this year and $2.67 billion on candy alone, according to WalletHub.

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The city's sometimes rough fall weather earned it 53rd place in WalletHub's Halloween weather forecast category. It's also more expensive to celebrate Halloween in New York than other places — it ranked 41st for the average price of a Halloween party, which WalletHub says 34.3 percent of Americans will throw this year.

But one of those parties is free — about 2 million people and 60,000 costumed marchers are expected at the Oct. 31 Village Halloween Parade, which WalletHub says is the world's largest.

Thinking of getting out of town for next week's macabre holiday? You wouldn't have to go far to find another great Halloween spot — Jersey City, New Jersey grabbed the No. 2 spot on WalletHub's list.

Here are WalletHub's top 10 Halloween cities, in case you want to travel a little further. See the full list here.

1. New York City
2. Jersey City, New Jersey
3. Santa Ana, California
4. Las Vegas, Nevada
5. Anaheim, California
6. Los Angeles, California
7. Chicago, Illinois
8. Laredo, Texas
9. San Diego, California
10. Gilbert, Arizona

(Lead image: Costumed New Yorkers march in the 2016 Village Halloween Parade. Photo by Andres Kudacki/Associated Press)