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.

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.

The datasets are split by census block, cities, counties, districts, provinces, and states. The typical dataset includes the below fields.

Column numbers, Data attribute, Description 1, device_id, hashed anonymized unique id per moving device 2, origin_geoid, geohash id of the origin grid cell 3, destination_geoid, geohash id of the destination grid cell 4, origin_lat, origin latitude with 4-to-5 decimal precision 5, origin_long, origin longitude with 4-to-5 decimal precision 6, destination_lat, destination latitude with 5-to-6 decimal precision 7, destination_lon, destination longitude with 5-to-6 decimal precision 8, start_timestamp, start timestamp / local time 9, end_timestamp, end timestamp / local time 10, origin_shape_zone, customer provided origin shape id, zone or census block id 11, destination_shape_zone, customer provided destination shape id, zone or census block id 12, trip_distance, inferred distance traveled in meters, as the crow flies 13, trip_duration, inferred duration of the trip in seconds 14, trip_speed, inferred speed of the trip in meters per second 15, hour_of_day, hour of day of trip start (0-23) 16, time_period, time period of trip start (morning, afternoon, evening, night) 17, day_of_week, day of week of trip start(mon, tue, wed, thu, fri, sat, sun) 18, year, year of trip start 19, iso_week, iso week of the trip 20, iso_week_start_date, start date of the iso week 21, iso_week_end_date, end date of the iso week 22, travel_mode, mode of travel (walking, driving, bicycling, etc) 23, trip_event, trip or segment events (start, route, end, start-end) 24, trip_id, trip identifier (unique for each batch of results) 25, origin_city_block_id, census block id for the trip origin point 26, destination_city_block_id, census block id for the trip destination point 27, origin_city_block_name, census block name for the trip origin point 28, destination_city_block_name, census block name for the trip destination point 29, trip_scaled_ratio, ratio used to scale up each trip, for example, a trip_scaled_ratio value of 10 means that 1 original trip was scaled up to 10 trips 30, route_geojson, geojson line representing trip route trajectory or geometry

The datasets can be processed and enhanced to also include places, POI visitation patterns, hour-of-day patterns, weekday patterns, weekend patterns, dwell time inferences, and macro movement trends.

The dataset is delivered as gzipped CSV archive files that are uploaded to your AWS s3 bucket upon request.

VITAL SIGNS INDICATOR
Commute Time (T3)

FULL MEASURE NAME
Commute time by residential location

LAST UPDATED
January 2023

DESCRIPTION
Commute time refers to the average number of minutes a commuter spends traveling to work on a typical day. The dataset includes metropolitan area, county, city, and census tract tables by place of residence.

DATA SOURCE
U.S. Census Bureau: Decennial Census (1980-2000) - via MTC/ABAG Bay Area Census - http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/transportation.htm

U.S. Census Bureau: American Community Survey - https://data.census.gov/
2006-2021
Form C08136
Form C08536
Form B08301
Form B08301
Form B08301

CONTACT INFORMATION
vitalsigns.info@bayareametro.gov

METHODOLOGY NOTES (across all datasets for this indicator)
For the decennial Census datasets, breakdown of commute times was unavailable by mode; only overall data could be provided on a historical basis.

For the American Community Survey (ACS) datasets, 1-year rolling average data was used for all metros, region and county geographic levels, while 5-year rolling average data was used for cities and tracts. This is due to the fact that more localized data is not included in the 1-year dataset across all Bay Area cities. Similarly, modal data is not available for every Bay Area city or census tract, even when the 5-year data is used for those localized geographies.

Regional commute times were calculated by summing aggregate county travel times and dividing by the relevant population; similarly, modal commute times were calculated using aggregate times and dividing by the number of communities choosing that mode for the given geography.

Census tract data is not available for tracts with insufficient numbers of residents. The metropolitan area comparison was performed for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area in addition to the primary metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) for the nine other major metropolitan areas.

In 2024, approximately 22.81 million people lived in the São Paulo metropolitan area, making it the biggest in Latin America and the Caribbean and the fifth most populated in the world. The homonymous state of São Paulo was also the most populous federal entity in the country. The second place for the region was Mexico City with 22.51 million inhabitants.

Brazil's cities

Brazil is home to two large metropolises, only counting the population within the city limits, São Paulo had approximately 12.4 million inhabitants, and Rio de Janeiro around 6.8 million inhabitants. It also contains a number of smaller, but well known cities such as Brasília, Salvador, Belo Horizonte and many others, which report between 2 and 3 million inhabitants each. As a result, the country's population is primarily urban, with nearly 85 percent of inhabitants living in cities.

Mexico City

Mexico City's metropolitan area ranks fifth in the ranking of most populated cities in the world. Founded over the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan in 1521 after the Spanish conquest as the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the city still stands as one of the most important in Latin America. Nevertheless, the preeminent economic, political, and cultural position of Mexico City has not prevented the metropolis from suffering the problems affecting the rest of the country, namely, inequality and violence. Only in 2021, the city registered a crime incidence of 45,336 reported cases for every 100,000 inhabitants and around 32 percent of the population lived under the poverty line.

Graph and download economic data for Average Weekly Hours of All Employees: Total Private in Oklahoma City, OK (MSA) (SMU40364200500000002A) from 2007 to 2024 about Oklahoma City, OK, hours, private, employment, and USA.

A dataset listing Maine cities by population for 2024.

Graph and download economic data for Average Weekly Hours of All Employees: Total Private in Yuba City, CA (MSA) (SMU06497000500000002) from Jan 2007 to Jan 2025 about Yuba City, hours, CA, private, employment, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Average Weekly Hours of All Employees: Total Private in Salt Lake City-Murray, UT (MSA) (SMU49416200500000002) from Jan 2007 to Jan 2025 about Salt Lake City, UT, hours, private, employment, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Average Weekly Earnings of All Employees: Total Private in Atlantic City-Hammonton, NJ (MSA) (SMU34121000500000011) from Jan 2007 to Jan 2025 about Atlantic City, NJ, earnings, private, employment, and USA.

The gender distribution of internet users according to a survey across Indian metropolitan cities showed males having higher shares of internet usage in 2019. Ahmedabad, the capital city of Gujarat, showed the lowest share of women internet user compared to other metropolitan areas.

Graph and download economic data for Average Weekly Hours of Production Employees: Retail Trade in Salt Lake City-Murray, UT (MSA) (SMU49416204200000007) from Jan 2003 to Jan 2025 about Salt Lake City, UT, hours, retail trade, production, sales, retail, employment, and USA.

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.

Graph and download economic data for Average Weekly Hours of All Employees: Total Private in Boise City, ID (MSA) (SMU16142600500000002) from Jan 2007 to Jan 2025 about Boise City, ID, hours, private, employment, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Average Weekly Hours of All Employees: Total Private in Jefferson City, MO (MSA) (SMU29276200500000002A) from 2007 to 2024 about Jefferson City, MO, hours, private, employment, and USA.

In 2023, the population of the St. Louis metropolitan area in the United States was about 2.79 million people. This is a slight decrease in comparison to the previous year, when the population was 2.8 million people.

Graph and download economic data for Average Weekly Hours of All Employees: Total Private in Carson City, NV (MSA) (SMU32161800500000002A) from 2007 to 2024 about Carson City, NV, hours, private, employment, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Average Weekly Hours of All Employees: Total Private in Iowa City, IA (MSA) (SMU19269800500000002) from Jan 2007 to Jan 2025 about Iowa City, IA, hours, private, employment, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Average Weekly Hours of All Employees: Total Private in Michigan City-La Porte, IN (MSA) (SMU18331400500000002A) from 2007 to 2024 about Michigan City, IN, hours, private, employment, and USA.

This statistic shows the top metropolitan areas with the highest percentage of college graduates in the United States in 2019. In 2019, Boulder in Colorado was ranked first with 64.8 percent of its population having a Bachelor's degree or higher.