Richmond is apparently one of America's brainiest cities

State of play: Maxwell Social ranked RVA at No. 9 among America's 50 most "intellectual" metro areas.

• That puts us ahead of D.C. (No. 10) and Raleigh (No. 29) and one place behind NYC — but just by a measly 0.1 point.

• Boston took the top spot, followed by Hartford and San Francisco.

How it works: Researchers were looking for "intellectual life outside the classroom" by measuring the number of museums, libraries, bookstores, universities, graduate degrees and more.

• They also took into account Google searches for things like book clubs, chess and trivia.

Yes, but: The ranking measures opportunities for intellectual engagement — not how smart residents actually are (or so they say).

The intrigue: Richmond scored highest for the number of museums and bookstores per 100,00o residents, plus the share of residents with graduate degrees.

• Our lowest score? Googling intellectual things to do. Apparently, we already know where to go.
• Like we said, we smart.