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 data set describes metropolitan areas in the conterminous United States, developed from U.S. Bureau of the Census boundaries of Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas (CMSA) and Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA), that have been processed to extract the largest contiguous urban area within each MSA or CMSA.

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.

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.

United States US: Population in Largest City: as % of Urban Population data was reported at 7.020 % in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 7.065 % for 2016. United States US: Population in Largest City: as % of Urban Population data is updated yearly, averaging 8.675 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 11.200 % in 1960 and a record low of 7.020 % in 2017. United States US: Population in Largest City: as % of Urban Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Population in largest city is the percentage of a country's urban population living in that country's largest metropolitan area.; ; United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects.; Weighted average;

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 shows the leading metropolitan areas with the highest percentage of white population in the United States in 2023. Among the 81 largest metropolitan areas (by population), Knoxville, Tennessee was ranked first with 90.9 percent of residents reporting as white, non-Hispanic in 2023.

The TIGER/Line shapefiles and related database files (.dbf) are an extract of selected geographic and cartographic information from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) Database (MTDB). The MTDB represents a seamless national file with no overlaps or gaps between parts, however, each TIGER/Line shapefile is designed to stand alone as an independent data set, or they can be combined to cover the entire nation. Metropolitan Divisions subdivide a Metropolitan Statistical Area containing a single core urban area that has a population of at least 2.5 million to form smaller groupings of counties or equivalent entities. Not all Metropolitan Statistical Areas with urban areas of this size will contain Metropolitan Divisions. Metropolitan Division are defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and consist of one or more main counties or equivalent entities that represent an employment center or centers, plus adjacent counties associated with the main county or counties through commuting ties. Because Metropolitan Divisions represent subdivisions of larger Metropolitan Statistical Areas, it is not appropriate to rank or compare Metropolitan Divisions with Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas. The Metropolitan Divisions boundaries are those defined by OMB based on the 2010 Census, published in 2013, and updated in 2017.

Important Note: This item is in mature support as of June 2023 and will retire in December 2025. A new version of this item is available for your use.The layers going from 1:1 to 1:1.5M present the 2010 Census Urbanized Areas (UA) and Urban Clusters (UC). A UA consists of contiguous, densely settled census block groups (BGs) and census blocks that meet minimum population density requirements (1000 people per square mile (ppsm) / 500 ppsm), along with adjacent densely settled census blocks that together encompass a population of at least 50,000 people. A UC consists of contiguous, densely settled census BGs and census blocks that meet minimum population density requirements, along with adjacent densely settled census blocks that together encompass a population of at least 2,500 people, but fewer than 50,000 people. The dataset covers the 50 States plus the District of Columbia within United States. The layer going over 1:1.5M presents the urban areas in the United States derived from the urban areas layer of the Digital Chart of the World (DCW). It provides information about the locations, names, and populations of urbanized areas for conducting geographic analysis on national and large regional scales. To download the data for this layer as a layer package for use in ArcGIS desktop applications, refer to USA Census Urban Areas.

Disclaimer: These data are updated by the author and are not an official product of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.This project provides two sets of migration estimates for the major US metro areas. The first series measures net migration of people to and from the urban neighborhoods of the metro areas. The second series covers all neighborhoods but breaks down net migration to other regions by four region types: (1) high-cost metros, (2) affordable, large metros, (3) midsized metros, and (4) small metros and rural areas. These series were introduced in a Cleveland Fed District Data Brief entitled “Urban and Regional Migration Estimates: Will Your City Recover from the Pandemic?"The migration estimates in this project are created with data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York/Equifax Consumer Credit Panel (CCP). The CCP is a 5 percent random sample of the credit histories maintained by Equifax. The CCP reports the census block of residence for over 10 million individuals each quarter. Each month, Equifax receives individuals’ addresses, along with reports of debt balances and payments, from creditors (mortgage lenders, credit card issuers, student loan servicers, etc.). An algorithm maintained by Equifax considers all of the addresses reported for an individual and identifies the individual’s most likely current address. Equifax anonymizes the data before they are added to the CCP, removing names, addresses, and Social Security numbers (SSNs). In lieu of mailing addresses, the census block of the address is added to the CCP. Equifax creates a unique, anonymous identifier to enable researchers to build individuals’ panels. The panel nature of the data allows us to observe when someone has migrated and is living in a census block different from the one they lived in at the end of the preceding quarter. For more details about the CCP and its use in measuring migration, see Lee and Van der Klaauw (2010) and DeWaard, Johnson and Whitaker (2019). DefinitionsMetropolitan areaThe metropolitan areas in these data are combined statistical areas. This is the most aggregate definition of metro areas, and it combines Washington DC with Baltimore, San Jose with San Francisco, Akron with Cleveland, etc. Metro areas are combinations of counties that are tightly linked by worker commutes and other economic activity. All counties outside of metropolitan areas are tracked as parts of a rural commuting zone (CZ). CZs are also groups of counties linked by commuting, but CZ definitions cover all counties, both metropolitan and non-metropolitan. High-cost metropolitan areasHigh-cost metro areas are those where the median list price for a house was more than $200 per square foot on average between April 2017 and April 2022. These areas include San Francisco-San Jose, New York, San Diego, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, Miami, Sacramento, Denver, Salt Lake City, Portland, and Washington-Baltimore. Other Types of RegionsMetro areas with populations above 2 million and house price averages below $200 per square foot are categorized as affordable, large metros. Metro areas with populations between 500,000 and 2 million are categorized as mid-sized metros, regardless of house prices. All remaining counties are in the small metro and rural category.To obtain a metro area's total net migration, sum the four net migration values for the the four types of regions.Urban neighborhoodCensus tracts are designated as urban if they have a population density above 7,000 people per square mile. High density neighborhoods can support walkable retail districts and high-frequency public transportation. They are more likely to have the “street life” that people associate with living in an urban rather than a suburban area. The threshold of 7,000 people per square mile was selected because it was the average density in the largest US cities in the 1930 census. Before World War II, workplaces, shopping, schools and parks had to be accessible on foot. Tracts are also designated as urban if more than half of their housing units were built before WWII and they have a population density above 2,000 people per square mile. The lower population density threshold for the pre-war neighborhoods recognizes that many urban tracts have lost population since the 1960s. While the street grids usually remain, the area also needs su

This dataset contains estimates for demographic indicators shared by the Big Cities Health Coalition members represented by the largest metropolitan health departments in United States. The estimated values of demographic indicators cover the 2010-2015 period and are described by location, sex and race/ethnicity.

As of 2023, Tokyo-Yokohama in Japan was the largest world urban agglomeration, with 37,8 million people living there. Jakarta ranked second with 34 million, with Delhi in third with 32 million inhabitants.

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.

United States US: Population in Largest City data was reported at 18,761,941.000 Person in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of 18,704,696.000 Person for 2016. United States US: Population in Largest City data is updated yearly, averaging 16,107,057.000 Person from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 18,761,941.000 Person in 2017 and a record low of 14,163,521.000 Person in 1960. United States US: Population in Largest City data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Population in largest city is the urban population living in the country's largest metropolitan area.; ; United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects.; ;

A dataset listing Maine cities by population for 2024.

Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the Charlotte metro area from 1950 to 2025. United Nations population projections are also included through the year 2035.

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.

A dataset listing Colorado cities by population for 2024.

A dataset listing Iowa cities by population for 2024.

According to figures recently released by the United States Census, America’s largest metro areas are currently gaining population at impressive rates. The growth in these areas is in fact driving much of the population growth across the nation. Upon closer examination of the data, this growth is the result of two very different migrations – one coming from the location choices of Americans themselves, the other shaped by where new immigrants from outside the United States are heading.While many metro areas are attracting a net-inflow of migrants from other parts of the country, in several of the largest metros – New York, Los Angeles., and Miami, especially – there is actually a net outflow of Americans to the rest of the country. Immigration is driving population growth in these places. Sunbelt metros like Houston, Dallas, and Phoenix, and knowledge hubs like Austin, Seattle, San Francisco, and the District of Columbia are gaining much more from domestic migration.This map charts overall or net migration – a combination of domestic and international migration. Most large metros, those with at least a million residents, had more people coming in than leaving. The metros with the highest levels of population growth due to migration are a mix of knowledge-based economies and Sunbelt metros, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, District of Columbia, San Francisco, Seattle, and Austin. Eleven large metros, nearly all in or near the Rustbelt, had a net outflow of migrants, including Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, Philadelphia, and Saint Louis.Source: Atlantic Cities