No one was more surprised than the people who live in Norfolk to hear that Investopedia, a website operated by the Forbes Digital media company, named the community of 10,600 as one of the top places in the nation to raise a family.

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But their shock was not because Norfolk doesn’t deserve such an honor, residents stressed. It was that the world has finally discovered the town that now ranks up there with Honolulu; Madison, Wis.; Peachtree City, Ga.; Farmington, Utah; Overland Park, Kan.; and Burlington, Vt., which came in first.

Norfolk came in sixth, gaining praise for its high student-teacher ratio and its low violent-crime index. There was no mention that it hosts two state prisons and an abandoned state hospital.

Investopedia editors described Norfolk, with the smallest population on its list of seven “family-friendly’’ cities, as “a rural suburb just 21 miles outside of Boston.

“At 1.38 times the national average, the cost of living is a tad on the pricey side,’’ the brief report said, “but Norfolk was recently recognized as one of Forbes magazine’s ‘Best for the Buck’ school districts.’’

It turns out the 2007 Forbes article was referring to all of the school districts encompassed by Norfolk County, but the Town Meeting moderator, Dan Winslow, said he thinks Norfolk deserves the accolade.

“The town’s greatest strength is the people who live in it,’’ he said. “There is a real sense of civic engagement and neighborhood pride.’’

Winslow has increased participation at Town Meeting in recent years by offering such incentives as free spaghetti suppers and Red Sox ticket raffles for those who attend the meeting’s second night.

“Norfolk is such a slice of Americana,’’ said the town administrator, Jack Hathaway, who moved here from Needham years ago. “It’s a little, small farming community, just an out-of-the-way place.’’

Some residents do want progress, like a supermarket, Hathaway said. “But we’ve kind of avoided it by luck,’’ he said. “It’s nice that we’ve retained our quaintness.’’

For years, Stop & Shop talked about opening a store in downtown Norfolk, but put its plans on hold when the economy started to slide. But there are markets in other towns 10 minutes away.

Still, changes are a reality for Norfolk just like everywhere else.

There is a Walgreens pharmacy under construction in the center of town, and Town Hall and the Norfolk Public Library have been renovated in recent years.

On Tuesday, residents approved a property-tax increase to help fund a $37 million project to replace the Freeman-Centennial School. But they rejected tax increases for a new public safety building and road repairs.

Yet, not everyone is so effusive about the town’s attributes.

“I do not agree with the education part of it in any way, shape, or form,’’ said resident Mark Perry, who has three young children in the school system. Students in prekindergarten through Grade 6 attend Freeman-Centennial or the H. Olive Day School in town, while middle and high school students are in the King Philip Regional district with Plainville and Wrentham. “We have teachers in the middle school that put union contracts before their students, and middle school classrooms sitting empty because we can not afford to pay the teachers to staff the classrooms.’’

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“For the last 20 years, people move in and change what they don’t like about Norfolk,’’ Bremilst said. “Maybe change it to be more like the town they left.’’