How many incorporated places are registered in the U.S.?

There were 19,502 incorporated places registered in the United States as of July 31, 2019. 16,410 had a population under 10,000 while, in contrast, only 10 cities had a population of one million or more.

Small-town America

Suffice it to say, almost nothing is more idealized in the American imagination than small-town America. When asked where they would prefer to live, 30 percent of Americans reported that they would prefer to live in a small town. Americans tend to prefer small-town living due to a perceived slower pace of life, close-knit communities, and a more affordable cost of living when compared to large cities.

An increasing population

Despite a preference for small-town life, metropolitan areas in the U.S. still see high population figures, with the New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago metro areas being the most populous in the country. Metro and state populations are projected to increase by 2040, so while some may move to small towns to escape city living, those small towns may become more crowded in the upcoming decades.

As of 2019, most rural inhabitants in Africa resided close to small and mid-sized towns. The nearest city to almost 70 percent of the rural population had between 10,000 and 50,000 inhabitants. Smaller shares of rural households, on the other hand, lived closer to larger urban areas. As of the same year, roughly half of the rural residents lived within 14 kilometers from a city.

A dataset listing Washington cities by population for 2024.

All cities with a population > 1000 or seats of adm div (ca 80.000)Sources and ContributionsSources : GeoNames is aggregating over hundred different data sources. Ambassadors : GeoNames Ambassadors help in many countries. Wiki : A wiki allows to view the data and quickly fix error and add missing places. Donations and Sponsoring : Costs for running GeoNames are covered by donations and sponsoring.Enrichment:add country name

How would you define the boundaries of a town or city in England and Wales in 2016?

Maybe your definition would be based on its population size, geographic extent or where the industry and services are located. This was a question the ONS had to consider when creating a new statistical geography called Towns and Cities.

In reality, the ability to delimit the boundaries of a city or town is difficult!

Major Towns and Cities

The new statistical geography, Towns and Cities has been created based on population size and the extent of the built environment. It contains 112 towns and cities in England and Wales, where the residential and/or workday population > 75,000 people at the 2011 Census. It has been constructed using the existing Built-Up Area boundary set produced by Ordnance Survey in 2011.

This swipe map shows where the towns and cities and built-up areas are different. Just swipe the bar from left to right.

The blue polygons are the towns and cities and the purple polygons are the built-up areas.

A dataset listing Maine cities by population for 2024.

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.

Towns in England and Wales: towns list, cities list, classification and population data.

This statistic shows the top 25 cities in the United States with the highest resident population as of July 1, 2022. There were about 8.34 million people living in New York City as of July 2022.

Population and household characteristics by built-up area (BUA) size classification and individual BUAs, England (excluding London) and Wales, Census 2021. Data are available at a country, BUA size classification and individual BUA level.

Medieval European urbanization presents a line of continuity between earlier cities and modern European urban systems. Yet, many of the spatial, political and economic features of medieval European cities were particular to the Middle Ages, and subsequently changed over the Early Modern Period and Industrial Revolution. There is a long tradition of demographic studies estimating the population sizes of medieval European cities, and comparative analyses of these data have shed much light on the long-term evolution of urban systems. However, the next step—to systematically relate the population size of these cities to their spatial and socioeconomic characteristics—has seldom been taken. This raises a series of interesting questions, as both modern and ancient cities have been observed to obey area-population relationships predicted by settlement scaling theory. To address these questions, we analyze a new dataset for the settled area and population of 173 European cities from the early fourteenth century to determine the relationship between population and settled area. To interpret this data, we develop two related models that lead to differing predictions regarding the quantitative form of the population-area relationship, depending on the level of social mixing present in these cities. Our empirical estimates of model parameters show a strong densification of cities with city population size, consistent with patterns in contemporary cities. Although social life in medieval Europe was orchestrated by hierarchical institutions (e.g., guilds, church, municipal organizations), our results show no statistically significant influence of these institutions on agglomeration effects. The similarities between the empirical patterns of settlement relating area to population observed here support the hypothesis that cities throughout history share common principles of organization that self-consistently relate their socioeconomic networks to structured urban spaces.

This data layer produced by the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) Education Demographic and Geographic Estimates (EDGE) program provides a geographic locale framework that classifies all U.S. territory into twelve categories ranging from Large Cities to Remote Rural areas. NCES uses this framework to describe the type of geographic area where schools and school districts are located. The criteria for these classifications are defined by NCES and rely on standard geographic areas developed and maintained by the U.S. Census Bureau. The NCES Locale boundaries are based on geographic areas represented in Census TIGER/Line. For more information about the NCES locale framework, and to download the data, see: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/edge/Geographic/LocaleBoundaries. The classifications include:City - Large (11): Territory inside an Urban Area with a population of 50,000 or more and inside a Principal City with population of 250,000 or more.City - Midsize (12): Territory inside an Urban Area with a population of 50,000 or more and inside a Principal City with population less than 250,000 and greater than or equal to 100,000.City - Small (13): Territory inside an Urban Area with a population of 50,000 or more and inside a Principal City with population less than 100,000.Suburb – Large (21): Territory outside a Principal City and inside an Urban Area with population of 250,000 or more.Suburb - Midsize (22): Territory outside a Principal City and inside an Urban Area with population less than 250,000 and greater than or equal to 100,000.Suburb - Small (23): Territory outside a Principal City and inside an Urban Area with population less than 100,000. Town - Fringe (31): Territory inside an Urban Area with a population less than 50,000 that is less than or equal to 10 miles from an Urban Area with a population of 50,000 or more.Town - Distant (32): Territory inside an Urban Area with a population less than 50,000 that is more than 10 miles and less than or equal to 35 miles from an Urban Area with a population of 50,000 or more.Town - Remote (33): Territory inside an Urban Area with a population less than 50,000 that is more than 35 miles of an Urban Area with a population of 50,000 or more.Rural - Fringe (41): Census-defined rural territory that is less than or equal to 5 miles from an Urban Area of 50,000 or more, as well as rural territory that is less than or equal to 2.5 miles from an Urban Area with a population less than 50,000.Rural - Distant (42): Census-defined rural territory that is more than 5 miles but less than or equal to 25 miles from an Urban Area with a population of 50,000 or more, as well as rural territory that is more than 2.5 miles but less than or equal to 10 miles from an Urban Area with a population less than 50,000.Rural - Remote (43): Census-defined rural territory that is more than 25 miles from an Urban Area with a population of 50,000 or more and is also more than 10 miles from an Urban Area with a population less than 50,000.All information contained in this file is in the public domain. Data users are advised to review NCES program documentation and feature class metadata to understand the limitations and appropriate use of these data.

A dataset listing Iowa cities by population for 2024.

A dataset listing Indiana cities by population for 2024.

City population size is a crucial measure when trying to understand urban life. Many socio-economic indicators scale superlinearly with city size, whilst some infrastructure indicators scale sublinearly with city size. However, the impact of size also extends beyond the city’s limits. Here, we analyse the scaling behaviour of cities beyond their boundaries by considering the emergence and growth of nearby cities. Based on an urban network from African continental cities, we construct an algorithm to create the region of influence of cities. The number of cities and the population within a region of influence are then analysed in the context of urban scaling. Our results are compared against a random permutation of the network, showing that the observed scaling power of cities to enhance the emergence and growth of cities is not the result of randomness. By altering the radius of influence of cities, we observe three regimes. Large cities tend to be surrounded by many small towns for small distances. For medium distances (above 114 km), large cities are surrounded by many other cities containing large populations. Large cities boost urban emergence and growth (even more than 190 km away), but their scaling power decays with distance.

A dataset listing West Virginia cities by population for 2024.

This statistic shows the population living in cities in Indonesia from 2005 to 2016, arranged by city size. In 2015, there were approximately 100.15 million inhabitants living in cities with less than 300 thousand people in Indonesia.

Population and Housing Censuses: Main dwellings according to useful surface by town size. National.

Population and Housing Censuses: Main dwellings according to tenancy regime by town size. Autonomous Communities and Provinces.

This layer shows housing units by tenure (owner or renter), and vacancy status data from the 2020 Census Demographic and Housing Characteristics. This is shown by Nation, Consolidated City, Census Designated Place, Incorporated Place boundaries. Each geography layer contains a common set of Census counts based on available attributes from the U.S. Census Bureau. There are also additional calculated attributes related to this topic, which can be mapped or used within analysis.   To see the full list of attributes available in this service, go to the "Data" tab above, and then choose "Fields" at the top right. Each attribute contains definitions, additional details, and the formula for calculated fields in the field description.Vintage of boundaries and attributes: 2020 Demographic and Housing Characteristics Table(s): P1, H1, H2, H3, H4, H4B, H4C, H4D, H4E, H4F, H4G, H4H, H4I, H5, H9, H12, H12B, H12C, H12D, H12E, H12F, H12G, H12H, H12I, H13, H13B, H13C, H13D, H13E, H13F, H13G, H13H, H13I, H15, HCT2 (Not all lines of these DHC tables are available in this feature layer.)Data downloaded from: U.S. Census Bureau’s data.census.gov siteDate the Data was Downloaded: May 25, 2023Geography Levels included: Nation, Consolidated City, Census Designated Place, Incorporated PlaceNational Figures: included in Nation layer The United States Census Bureau Demographic and Housing Characteristics: 2020 Census Results 2020 Census Data Quality Geography & 2020 Census Technical Documentation Data Table Guide: includes the final list of tables, lowest level of geography by table and table shells for the Demographic Profile and Demographic and Housing Characteristics.News & Updates This layer is ready to be used in ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online and its configurable apps, Story Maps, dashboards, Notebooks, Python, custom apps, and mobile apps. Data can also be exported for offline workflows. Please cite the U.S. Census Bureau when using this data. Data Processing Notes: These 2020 Census boundaries come from the US Census TIGER geodatabases. These are Census boundaries with water and/or coastlines erased for cartographic and mapping purposes. For Census tracts and block groups, the water cutouts are derived from a subset of the 2020 Areal Hydrography boundaries offered by TIGER. Water bodies and rivers which are 50 million square meters or larger (mid to large sized water bodies) are erased from the tract and block group boundaries, as well as additional important features. For state and county boundaries, the water and coastlines are derived from the coastlines of the 2020 500k TIGER Cartographic Boundary Shapefiles. These are erased to more accurately portray the coastlines and Great Lakes. The original AWATER and ALAND fields are unchanged and available as attributes within the data table (units are square meters).  The layer contains all US states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. Census tracts with no population that occur in areas of water, such as oceans, are removed from this data service (Census Tracts beginning with 99). Block groups that fall within the same criteria (Block Group denoted as 0 with no area land) have also been removed.Percentages and derived counts, are calculated values (that can be identified by the "_calc_" stub in the field name). Field alias names were created based on the Table Shells file available from the Data Table Guide for the Demographic Profile and Demographic and Housing Characteristics. Not all lines of all tables listed above are included in this layer. Duplicative counts were dropped. For example, P0030001 was dropped, as it is duplicative of P0010001.To protect the privacy and confidentiality of respondents, their data has been protected using differential privacy techniques by the U.S. Census Bureau.