According to a study released by Sperling’s BestPlaces and Intel Corporation, Washington, D.C has been named the “Best City for Teleworking” in America.

The Best Places for Teleworking study ranked cities based on the potential benefits that teleworking would offer residents in those cities. Eighty metropolitan areas in the U.S. were examined and ranked alongside other similarly sized areas. To create the rankings, Sperling’s BestPlaces evaluated each area’s factors in the categories of commuting, office-based workforce, Internet infrastructure, extreme climate and natural hazards. The climate category included the annual number of days with heavy snow, rain and ice which may disrupt a commute. The natural hazards category measured the risk from hurricanes, earthquakes and tornadoes.

After Washington, the top cities in the very large metro area category are Boston, Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco. The large metro area category was topped by San Jose, California, followed by Baltimore, Denver, San Diego and Indianapolis. Bridgeport/Stamford/Norwalk, Connecticut led the medium metro area category and Boulder, Colorado headed up the small metro area list.

“At Intel we’ve experienced the benefits of teleworking for years,” said Nigel Ballard, teleworking campaign manager for Intel. “We’re a global company, doing business in many locations and across all time zones. The benefits of teleworking aren’t just added productivity for the employer; there are new and welcome benefits for the employee as well, such as a more flexible work week, the ability to work efficiently from home and the substantial saving on gas and personal vehicle wear and tear.”

The study identified cities that hold the greatest potential for teleworking based on a host of factors, including typical commuting times, fuel prices, availability of broadband Internet access and percentage of the population in telework friendly jobs. Washington, D.C. earned the top spot with high scores in those categories. It has one of the highest percentages of white-collar workers in the study, plus the daily commute is one of the most time-consuming and costly in the U.S. A single Washington office worker who teleworks just one day each week can see savings of $488 in transportation costs and $2,708 in time savings each year.