In 2023, the metropolitan area of New York-Newark-Jersey City had the biggest population in the United States. Based on annual estimates from the census, the metropolitan area had around 19.5 million inhabitants, which was a slight decrease from the previous year. The Los Angeles and Chicago metro areas rounded out the top three. What is a metropolitan statistical area? In general, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a core urbanized area with a population of at least 50,000 inhabitants – the smallest MSA is Carson City, with an estimated population of nearly 56,000. The urban area is made bigger by adjacent communities that are socially and economically linked to the center. MSAs are particularly helpful in tracking demographic change over time in large communities and allow officials to see where the largest pockets of inhabitants are in the country. How many MSAs are in the United States? There were 421 metropolitan statistical areas across the U.S. as of July 2021. The largest city in each MSA is designated the principal city and will be the first name in the title. An additional two cities can be added to the title, and these will be listed in population order based on the most recent census. So, in the example of New York-Newark-Jersey City, New York has the highest population, while Jersey City has the lowest. The U.S. Census Bureau conducts an official population count every ten years, and the new count is expected to be announced by the end of 2030.

In 2024, the average rent for rental apartments increased in 27 of the 50 U.S. metropolitan areas with the largest populations. Providence-Warwick, RI-MA was the metro with the highest rental growth, an annual increase of 5.12 percent as of April that year. Conversely, Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, TX experienced the highest decline in rents, at 7.42 percent.

This statistics shows a list of the top 20 largest-metropolitan areas in the United States in 2010, by land area. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario in California was ranked first enclosing an area of 70,612 square kilometers.

This statistic provides projected figures for the Gross Metropolitan Product (GMP) of the United States in 2021, by metropolitan area. Only the 100 leading metropolitan areas are shown here. In 2022, the GMP of the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area is projected to be around of about 2.16 trillion U.S. dollars.

Los Angeles metropolitan area

A metropolitan area in the U.S. is characterized by a relatively high population density and close economic ties through the area, albeit, without the legal incorporation that is found within cities. The Gross Metropolitan Product is measured by the Bureau of Economic Analysis under the U.S. Department of Commerce and includes only metropolitan areas. The GMP of the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metropolitan area located in California is projected to be among the highest in the United States in 2021, amounting to 1.1 trillion U.S. dollars. The Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, Texas metro area is estimated to be approximately 543 billion U.S. dollars in the same year.

The Los Angeles metro area had one of the largest populations in the country, totaling 112.99 million people in 2021. The Greater Los Angeles region has one of the largest economies in the world and is the U.S. headquarters of many international car manufacturers including Honda, Mazda, and Hyundai. Its entertainment industry has generated plenty of tourism and includes world famous beaches, shopping, motion picture studios, and amusement parks. The Hollywood district is known as the “movie capital of the U.S.” and has its historical roots in the country’s film industry. Its port, the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach are aggregately one of the world’s busiest ports. The Port of Los Angelesgenerated some 506.43 million U.S. dollars in revenue in 2019.

The number of single-family homes listed for sale in the 50 largest metros in the United States in January 2025 ranged between 1,000 and 26,000. Dallas, TX, which is the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country, had the most active listings that month, totaling 26,597. New York, NY — the biggest metro in the country — had 20,679 active listings. Additionally, it was one of the few metros where inventory declined between January 2024 and January 2025.

A dataset listing Washington cities by population for 2024.

Key Table Information.Table Title.Island Areas: Share of Sales, Value of Shipments, or Revenue Accounted for by the 4, 8, 20, and 50 Largest Establishments for Puerto Rico: 2022.Table ID.ISLANDAREASIND2022.IA2200SIZE03.Survey/Program.Economic Census of Island Areas.Year.2022.Dataset.ECNIA Economic Census of Island Areas.Source.U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census of Island Areas, Core Statistics.Release Date.2024-12-19.Release Schedule.The Economic Census occurs every five years, in years ending in 2 and 7.2022 Economic Census of Island Areas tables are released on a flow basis from June through December 2024.For more information about economic census planned data product releases, see 2022 Economic Census Release Schedule..Dataset Universe. The dataset universe consists of all establishments that are in operation for at least some part of 2022, are located in Puerto Rico, have paid employees, and are classified in one of eighteen in-scope sectors defined by the 2022 NAICS..Sponsor.U.S. Department of Commerce.Methodology.Data Items and Other Identifying Records.Number of establishmentsSales, value of shipments, or revenue ($1,000)Sales, value of shipments, or revenue of largest establishments as percent of total sales, value of shipments, or revenue (%)Herfindahl-Hirschman index for the 50 largest establishmentsRange indicating percent of total sales, value of shipments, or revenue imputedEach record includes a CONCENES code, which represents a specific concentration ratio category for establishments.The data are shown for concentration ratio ranges.Definitions can be found by clicking on the column header in the table or by accessing the Economic Census Glossary..Unit(s) of Observation.The reporting units for the Economic Census of Island Areas are employer establishments. An establishment is generally a single physical location where business is conducted or where services or industrial operations are performed..Geography Coverage.The data are shown for employer establishments and firms that vary by industry:At the Territory level for Puerto RicoFor information about economic census geographies, including changes for 2022, see Geographies..Industry Coverage.The data are shown at the 2- through 4-digit 2022 NAICS code levels for selected economic census sectors and geographies.For information about NAICS, see Economic Census Code Lists..Sampling.The Economic Census of Island Areas is a complete enumeration of establishments located in the islands (i.e., all establishments on the sampling frame are included in the sample). Therefore, the accuracy of tabulations is not affected by sampling error..Confidentiality.The Census Bureau has reviewed this data product to ensure appropriate access, use, and disclosure avoidance protection of the confidential source data (Project No. 7504609, Disclosure Review Board (DRB) approval number: CBDRB-FY24-0044).The primary method of disclosure avoidance protection is noise infusion. Under this method, the quantitative data values such as sales or payroll for each establishment are perturbed prior to tabulation by applying a random noise multiplier (i.e., factor). Each establishment is assigned a single noise factor, which is applied to all its quantitative data value. Using this method, most published cell totals are perturbed by at most a few percentage points.To comply with disclosure avoidance guidelines, data rows with fewer than three contributing establishments are not presented. For more information on disclosure avoidance, see Methodology for the 2022 Economic Census- Island Areas..Technical Documentation/Methodology.For detailed information about the methods used to collect data and produce statistics, see Methodology for the 2022 Economic Census- Island Areas.For more information about survey questionnaires, Primary Business Activity/NAICS codes, and NAPCS codes, see Economic Census Technical Documentation..Weights.Because the Economic Census of Island Areas is a complete enumeration, there is no sample weighting..Table Information.FTP Download.https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census/data/2022/sector00.API Information.Economic census data are housed in the Census Bureau Application Programming Interface (API)..Symbols.D - Withheld to avoid disclosing data for individual companies; data are included in higher level totalsN - Not available or not comparableS - Estimate does not meet publication standards because of high sampling variability, poor response quality, or other concerns about the estimate quality. Unpublished estimates derived from this table by subtraction are subject to these same limitations and should not be attributed to the U.S. Census Bureau. For a description of publication standards and the total quantity response rate, see link to program methodology page.X - Not applicableA - Relative standard error of 100% or morer - Reviseds - Relative standard error exceeds 40%For a complete list of symbols, see Economic Census Data ...

A dataset listing Maine cities by population for 2024.

A dataset listing South Dakota cities by population for 2024.

A dataset listing Alabama cities by population for 2024.

A dataset listing Utah cities by population for 2024.

The two metropolitan areas with the highest value of new residential construction in 2023 were in Texas. Those two areas, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington and Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, were the only ones in the United States where new homes built were worth over 15 billion U.S. dollars. Those figures were significantly higher than the following entries in the list, the areas around Phoenix (Arizona) and in New York, where home construction amounted to over ten billion U.S. dollars.

A dataset listing Alaska cities by population for 2024.

The McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metropolitan area in Texas was ranked first with 27.2 percent of its population living below the poverty level in 2023. Eagle Pass, Texas had the second-highest poverty rate, at 24.4 percent.

In 2022, the New Orleans-Metairie, LA metro area recorded the highest homicide rate of U.S. cities with a population over 250,000, at 27.1 homicides per 100,000 residents, followed by the Memphis, TN-MS-AR metro area. However, homicide data was not recorded in all U.S. metro areas, meaning that there may be some cities with a higher homicide rate.

St. Louis

St. Louis, which had a murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rate of 11.6 in 2022, is the second-largest city by population in Missouri. It is home to many famous treasures such as the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, Washington University in St. Louis, the Saint Louis Zoo, and the renowned Gateway Arch. It is home to many corporations such as Monsanto, Arch Coal, and Emerson Electric. The economy of St. Louis is centered around business and healthcare, and in addition is home to ten Fortune 500 companies.

Crime in St. Louis

Despite all of this, St. Louis suffers from high levels of crime and violence. As of 2023, it was listed as the seventh most dangerous city in the world as a result of their extremely high murder rate. Not only does St. Louis have one of the highest homicide rates in the United States, it also reports one of the highest numbers of violent crimes. In spite of high crime levels, the GDP of the St. Louis metropolitan area has been increasing since 2001.

This statistic shows the population growth rate of the top twenty largest urban agglomerations in the United States from 2000 to 2030. Between 2025 and 2030, the average annual population growth rate of the New York-Newark agglomeration is projected to be roughly 0.82 percent.

The New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area had the highest real GDP in 2023, totaling around 1.91 billion U.S. dollars. The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro area also had a high real GDP of around 1.08 billion dollars. This statistic only contains the top 100 metro areas by real GDP.

Land use planners across the United States felt that zoning rules for single-family homes had not changed that much up until 2019. Indeed, jurisdictions responsible for land use in the 50 largest US metropolitan areas said that the number of houses that can be built in a given area had stayed "roughly the same" as it was 10 to 15 years before. Zoning rules can be important for homebuilders as this determines the level of supply for the residential housing market. In the United States, land use is determined on a local level - with counties being able to make their own rules for residential, commercial and industrial development.

In 2022, San Francisco had the highest median household income of cities ranking within the top 25 in terms of population, with a median household income in of 136,692 U.S. dollars. In that year, San Jose in California was ranked second, and Seattle, Washington third.

Following a fall after the great recession, median household income in the United States has been increasing in recent years. As of 2022, median household income by state was highest in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Utah, and Massachusetts. It was lowest in Mississippi, West Virginia, and Arkansas. Families with an annual income of 25,000 and 49,999 U.S. dollars made up the largest income bracket in America, with about 25.26 million households.

Data on median household income can be compared to statistics on personal income in the U.S. released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal income rose to around 21.8 trillion U.S. dollars in 2022, the highest value recorded. Personal income is a measure of the total income received by persons from all sources, while median household income is “the amount with divides the income distribution into two equal groups,” according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Half of the population in question lives above median income and half lives below. Though total personal income has increased in recent years, this wealth is not distributed throughout the population. In practical terms, income of most households has decreased. One additional statistic illustrates this disparity: for the lowest quintile of workers, mean household income has remained more or less steady for the past decade at about 13 to 16 thousand constant U.S. dollars annually. Meanwhile, income for the top five percent of workers has actually risen from about 285,000 U.S. dollars in 1990 to about 499,900 U.S. dollars in 2020.

This statistics shows the top 20 fastest growing large-metropolitan areas in the United States between July 1st, 2022 and July 1st, 2023. The total population in the Wilmington, North Carolina, metropolitan area increased by 0.05 percent from 2022 to 2023.