Enlarge 2006 photo by Gabriel Bouys, AFP/Getty Images A man reads at the Seattle Public Library. Seattle and Minneapolis have vied as top reading hot spots for six years. HOW METRO AREAS RANKED HOW METRO AREAS RANKED 1. Minneapolis and Seattle (tie) 3. Washington, D.C. 4. St. Paul 5. San Francisco 6. Atlanta 7. Denver 8. Boston 9. St. Louis 10. Cincinnati and Portland, Ore. (tie) Source: America's Most Literate Cities, 2008 Minneapolis and Seattle are the USA's most literate cities, according to an annual study examining the "culture and resources for reading" in the nation's largest metro areas. For the past six years, the two cities have traded the first and second spots in the rankings, which analyze six key indicators of literacy (newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources) against population rates for cities with populations of 250,000 or more. The study does not look at reading test scores or how often people read, but what kinds of literary resources are available and used. This is "one critical index of our nation's well-being," says study author Jack Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Conn. The findings come at a time when newspaper circulations across the USA are declining, and online newspaper reading is increasing. Miller's analysis suggests that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the availability of free online news is not to blame for the decline in newspapers' print circulation — and that neither is the decline in bookstores across the country caused by the rise in online book buying. Cities that ranked higher for having more bookstores also have a higher proportion of people buying books online, the analysis found, and cities with newspapers that have high per-capita circulation rates also have more people reading newspapers online. Likewise, cities that ranked higher for having well-used libraries also have more booksellers. "Cities that rank highly in one form of literate behavior are likely to rank highly in other forms and practices of literacy," says Miller, noting that a literate society tends to practice many forms of literacy, not just one or another. Preliminary results of a related study examining international literacy paint a less optimistic outlook for the USA. It notes that in per-capita paid newspaper circulation, the USA ranks only 31st in the world, far behind other countries, including Aruba, Liechtenstein and Japan. The literate cities study is available online at www.ccsu.edu/amlc08 Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more