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 dataset includes basic data about all US cities with a population over 100.000 (333 cities)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

Coordinates of cities have been geocoded using https://rapidapi.com/GeocodeSupport/api/forward-reverse-geocoding/

Rows description:

City: Name of city State: Name of state Latitude, Longitude, Population_estimate_2022: Estimated population in 2022 Population_2020: Population figure from 2020 census Change_population: % change in population between 2022 and 2020 Land_area: City land area in sq. mi. Population_density_2020: density of population per sq. mi. in 2020

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.

Contains data on the top 330 most populous cities in the United States, including 2020 census information, 2010 census population, land area, population density, and location.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

In 2024, the city in the United States with the highest share of parkland was Anchorage, Alaska, where approximately 84 percent of the city was parkland. In second place, with almost half the percentage of parkland was Fremont, California, where 43 percent of the city was parkland.

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.

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.

Not many studies have documented climate and air quality changes of settlements at early stages of development. This is because high quality climate and air quality records are deficient for the periods of the early 18th century to mid 20th century when many U.S. cities were formed and grew. Dramatic landscape change induces substantial local climate change during the incipient stage of development. Rapid growth along the urban fringe in Phoenix, coupled with a fine-grained climate monitoring system, provide a unique opportunity to study the climate impacts of urban development as it unfolds. Generally, heat islands form, particularly at night, in proportion to city population size and morphological characteristics. Drier air is produced by replacement of the countryside's moist landscapes with dry, hot urbanized surfaces. Wind is increased due to turbulence induced by the built-up urban fabric and its morphology; although, depending on spatial densities of buildings on the land, wind may also decrease. Air quality conditions are worsened due to increased city emissions and surface disturbances. Depending on the diversity of microclimates in pre-existing rural landscapes and the land-use mosaic in cities, the introduction of settlements over time and space can increase or decrease the variety of microclimates within and near urban regions. These differences in microclimatic conditions can influence variations in health, ecological, architectural, economic, energy and water resources, and quality-of-life conditions in the city. Therefore, studying microclimatic conditions which change in the urban fringe over time and space is at the core of urban ecological goals as part of LTER aims. In analyzing Phoenix and Baltimore long-term rural/urban weather and climate stations, Brazel et al. (In progress) have discovered that long-term (i.e., 100 years) temperature changes do not correlate with populations changes in a linear manner, but rather in a third-order nonlinear response fashion. This nonlinear temporal change is consistent with the theories in boundary layer climatology that describe and explain the leading edge transition and energy balance theory. This pattern of urban vs. rural temperature response has been demonstrated in relation to spatial range of city sizes (using population data) for 305 rural vs. urban climate stations in the U.S. Our recent work on the two urban LTER sites has shown that a similar climate response pattern also occurs over time for climate stations that were initially located in rural locations have been overrun bu the urban fringe and subsequent urbanization (e.g., stations in Baltimore, Mesa, Phoenix, and Tempe). Lack of substantial numbers of weather and climate stations in cities has previously precluded small-scale analyses of geographic variations of urban climate, and the links to land-use change processes. With the advent of automated weather and climate station networks, remote-sensing technology, land-use history, and the focus on urban ecology, researchers can now analyze local climate responses as a function of the details of land-use change. Therefore, the basic research question of this study is: How does urban climate change over time and space at the place of maximum disturbance on the urban fringe? Hypotheses 1. Based on the leading edge theory of boundary layer climate change, largest changes should occur during the period of peak development of the land when land is being rapidly transformed from open desert and agriculture to residential, commercial, and industrial uses. 2. One would expect to observe, on average and on a temporal basis (several years), nonlinear temperature and humidity alterations across the station network at varying levels of urban development. 3. Based on past research on urban climate, one would expect to see in areas of the urban fringe, rapid changes in temperature (increases at night particularly), humidity (decreases in areas from agriculture to urban; increases from desert to urban), and wind speed (increases due to urban heating). 4. Changes of the surface climate on the urban fringe are expected to be altered as a function of various energy, moisture, and momentum control parameters, such as albedo, surface moisture, aerodynamic surface roughness, and thermal admittance. These parameters relate directly to population and land-use change (Lougeay et al. 1996).

Notice: this is not the latest Heat Island Severity image service. For 2023 data, visit https://tpl.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=db5bdb0f0c8c4b85b8270ec67448a0b6. This layer contains the relative heat severity for every pixel for every city in the United States. This 30-meter raster was derived from Landsat 8 imagery band 10 (ground-level thermal sensor) from the summers of 2018 and 2019.Federal statistics over a 30-year period show extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States. Extreme heat exacerbated by urban heat islands can lead to increased respiratory difficulties, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke. These heat impacts significantly affect the most vulnerable—children, the elderly, and those with preexisting conditions.The purpose of this layer is to show where certain areas of cities are hotter than the average temperature for that same city as a whole. Severity is measured on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being a relatively mild heat area (slightly above the mean for the city), and 5 being a severe heat area (significantly above the mean for the city). The absolute heat above mean values are classified into these 5 classes using the Jenks Natural Breaks classification method, which seeks to reduce the variance within classes and maximize the variance between classes. Knowing where areas of high heat are located can help a city government plan for mitigation strategies.This dataset represents a snapshot in time. It will be updated yearly, but is static between updates. It does not take into account changes in heat during a single day, for example, from building shadows moving. The thermal readings detected by the Landsat 8 sensor are surface-level, whether that surface is the ground or the top of a building. Although there is strong correlation between surface temperature and air temperature, they are not the same. We believe that this is useful at the national level, and for cities that don’t have the ability to conduct their own hyper local temperature survey. Where local data is available, it may be more accurate than this dataset. Dataset SummaryThis dataset was developed using proprietary Python code developed at The Trust for Public Land, running on the Descartes Labs platform through the Descartes Labs API for Python. The Descartes Labs platform allows for extremely fast retrieval and processing of imagery, which makes it possible to produce heat island data for all cities in the United States in a relatively short amount of time.What can you do with this layer?This layer has query, identify, and export image services available. Since it is served as an image service, it is not necessary to download the data; the service itself is data that can be used directly in any Esri geoprocessing tool that accepts raster data as input.Using the Urban Heat Island (UHI) Image ServicesThe data is made available as an image service. There is a processing template applied that supplies the yellow-to-red or blue-to-red color ramp, but once this processing template is removed (you can do this in ArcGIS Pro or ArcGIS Desktop, or in QGIS), the actual data values come through the service and can be used directly in a geoprocessing tool (for example, to extract an area of interest). Following are instructions for doing this in Pro.In ArcGIS Pro, in a Map view, in the Catalog window, click on Portal. In the Portal window, click on the far-right icon representing Living Atlas. Search on the acronyms “tpl” and “uhi”. The results returned will be the UHI image services. Right click on a result and select “Add to current map” from the context menu. When the image service is added to the map, right-click on it in the map view, and select Properties. In the Properties window, select Processing Templates. On the drop-down menu at the top of the window, the default Processing Template is either a yellow-to-red ramp or a blue-to-red ramp. Click the drop-down, and select “None”, then “OK”. Now you will have the actual pixel values displayed in the map, and available to any geoprocessing tool that takes a raster as input. Below is a screenshot of ArcGIS Pro with a UHI image service loaded, color ramp removed, and symbology changed back to a yellow-to-red ramp (a classified renderer can also be used): Other Sources of Heat Island InformationPlease see these websites for valuable information on heat islands and to learn about exciting new heat island research being led by scientists across the country:EPA’s Heat Island Resource CenterDr. Ladd Keith, University of Arizona Dr. Ben McMahan, University of Arizona Dr. Jeremy Hoffman, Science Museum of Virginia Dr. Hunter Jones, NOAADaphne Lundi, Senior Policy Advisor, NYC Mayor's Office of Recovery and ResiliencyDisclaimer/FeedbackWith nearly 14,000 cities represented, checking each city's heat island raster for quality assurance would be prohibitively time-consuming, so The Trust for Public Land checked a statistically significant sample size for data quality. The sample passed all quality checks, with about 98.5% of the output cities error-free, but there could be instances where the user finds errors in the data. These errors will most likely take the form of a line of discontinuity where there is no city boundary; this type of error is caused by large temperature differences in two adjacent Landsat scenes, so the discontinuity occurs along scene boundaries (see figure below). The Trust for Public Land would appreciate feedback on these errors so that version 2 of the national UHI dataset can be improved. Contact Dale.Watt@tpl.org with feedback.

Recent advances in quantitative tools for examining urban morphology enable the development of morphometrics that can characterize the size, shape, and placement of buildings; the relationships between them; and their association with broader patterns of development. Although these methods have the potential to provide substantial insight into the ways in which neighborhood morphology shapes the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of neighborhoods and communities, this question is largely unexplored. Using building footprints in five of the ten largest U.S. metropolitan areas (Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles) and the open-source R package, foot, we examine how neighborhood morphology differs across U.S. metropolitan areas and across the urban-exurban landscape. Principal components analysis, unsupervised classification (K-means), and Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis are used to develop a morphological typology of neighborhoods and to examine its association with the spatial, socioeconomic, and demographic characteristics of census tracts. Our findings illustrate substantial variation in the morphology of neighborhoods, both across the five metropolitan areas as well as between central cities, suburbs, and the urban fringe within each metropolitan area. We identify five different types of neighborhoods indicative of different stages of development and distributed unevenly across the urban landscape: these include low-density neighborhoods on the urban fringe; mixed use and high-density residential areas in central cities; and uniform residential neighborhoods in suburban cities. Results from regression analysis illustrate that the prevalence of each of these forms is closely associated with variation in socioeconomic and demographic characteristics such as population density, the prevalence of multifamily housing, and income, race/ethnicity, homeownership, and commuting by car. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings and suggesting avenues for future research on neighborhood morphology, including ways that it might provide insight into issues such as zoning and land use, housing policy, and residential segregation.

The Metropolitan Council routinely compiles individual land use plans and plan amendments from communities within the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area into a single regional data layer. A principal goal of the Regional Planned Land Use dataset is to allow users to view, analyze and display planned land use data for anywhere in the seven county metropolitan area with a consistent land use classification scheme. The Metropolitan Council uses the Regional Planned Land Use (PLU) data to help monitor growth and plan for regional services such as regional parks, transit service, and wastewater collection and treatment.

Although the planned land use data is based on the locally adopted land use plans and designations for each community, it represent only data that has been submitted to the Metropolitan Council for review per the Metropolitan Land Planning Act of 1995 (Minn. Stat 473.864, Subd 2 and 473.175, Subd 1). See Data Quality Information (Section 2 of this metadata) for specifics about the Metropolitan Land Planning Act of 1995 under Completeness information.

Since there is no official State or Regional land use coding scheme that communities must conform with, the variability of content and codes between communities' land use plans is nearly as vast as the number of communities themselves (187). Differences among communities can range from the implementation of different land use categories to conflicting definitions of similar categories. The PLU dataset attempts to effectively level out the variability among communities by translating communities land use categories and descriptions into a common classification scheme developed and endorsed by MetroGIS (a regional GIS data sharing consortium) participants while retaining each communities' original categories. Although the comparability of land use plans between communities has greatly improved as a result of this translation or "regionalization" of communities' land use codes, it is possible that not all community land use definitions have been precisely translated into the most appropriate regional land use category.

In conjunction with other regional information (i.e., land use trend data, households and jobs forecasts), the PLU data can help communities more easily understand regional and sub-regional planning goals and Council staff, working with individual local units of government, can better plan for the future needs and financing of regional services.

- Contact individual communities for more information on their locally adopted planned land use categories.

- See Data Quality Information (Section 2 of this metadata) for specifics about the development of the regional dataset and its accuracy.

- See Entities and Attributes Information (Section 5 of this metadata) for specifics about the regional land use codes and categories.

The Counties dataset was updated on October 31, 2023 from the United States Census Bureau (USCB) and is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT)/Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD). This resource is a member of a series. 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. The primary legal divisions of most states are termed counties. In Louisiana, these divisions are known as parishes. In Alaska, which has no counties, the equivalent entities are the organized boroughs, city and boroughs, municipalities, and for the unorganized area, census areas. The latter are delineated cooperatively for statistical purposes by the State of Alaska and the Census Bureau. In four states (Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia), there are one or more incorporated places that are independent of any county organization and thus constitute primary divisions of their states. These incorporated places are known as independent cities and are treated as equivalent entities for purposes of data presentation. The District of Columbia and Guam have no primary divisions, and each area is considered an equivalent entity for purposes of data presentation. The Census Bureau treats the following entities as equivalents of counties for purposes of data presentation: Municipios in Puerto Rico, Districts and Islands in American Samoa, Municipalities in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The entire area of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Island Areas is covered by counties or equivalent entities. The boundaries for counties and equivalent entities are mostly as of January 1, 2023, as reported through the Census Bureau's Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS). A data dictionary, or other source of attribute information, is accessible at https://doi.org/10.21949/1529015

This layer shows total population counts by sex, age, and race groups 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, H3, P2, P3, P5, P12, P13, P17, PCT12 (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.

This layer contains the relative heat severity for every pixel for every city in the United States. This 30-meter raster was derived from Landsat 8 imagery band 10 (ground-level thermal sensor) from the summers of 2018 and 2019.Federal statistics over a 30-year period show extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States. Extreme heat exacerbated by urban heat islands can lead to increased respiratory difficulties, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke. These heat impacts significantly affect the most vulnerable—children, the elderly, and those with preexisting conditions.The purpose of this layer is to show where certain areas of cities are hotter than the average temperature for that same city as a whole. Severity is measured on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being a relatively mild heat area (slightly above the mean for the city), and 5 being a severe heat area (significantly above the mean for the city). The absolute heat above mean values are classified into these 5 classes using the Jenks Natural Breaks classification method, which seeks to reduce the variance within classes and maximize the variance between classes. Knowing where areas of high heat are located can help a city government plan for mitigation strategies.This dataset represents a snapshot in time. It will be updated yearly, but is static between updates. It does not take into account changes in heat during a single day, for example, from building shadows moving. The thermal readings detected by the Landsat 8 sensor are surface-level, whether that surface is the ground or the top of a building. Although there is strong correlation between surface temperature and air temperature, they are not the same. We believe that this is useful at the national level, and for cities that don’t have the ability to conduct their own hyper local temperature survey. Where local data is available, it may be more accurate than this dataset. Dataset SummaryThis dataset was developed using proprietary Python code developed at The Trust for Public Land, running on the Descartes Labs platform through the Descartes Labs API for Python. The Descartes Labs platform allows for extremely fast retrieval and processing of imagery, which makes it possible to produce heat island data for all cities in the United States in a relatively short amount of time.What can you do with this layer?This layer has query, identify, and export image services available. Since it is served as an image service, it is not necessary to download the data; the service itself is data that can be used directly in any Esri geoprocessing tool that accepts raster data as input.Using the Urban Heat Island (UHI) Image ServicesThe data is made available as an image service. There is a processing template applied that supplies the yellow-to-red or blue-to-red color ramp, but once this processing template is removed (you can do this in ArcGIS Pro or ArcGIS Desktop, or in QGIS), the actual data values come through the service and can be used directly in a geoprocessing tool (for example, to extract an area of interest). Following are instructions for doing this in Pro.In ArcGIS Pro, in a Map view, in the Catalog window, click on Portal. In the Portal window, click on the far-right icon representing Living Atlas. Search on the acronyms “tpl” and “uhi”. The results returned will be the UHI image services. Right click on a result and select “Add to current map” from the context menu. When the image service is added to the map, right-click on it in the map view, and select Properties. In the Properties window, select Processing Templates. On the drop-down menu at the top of the window, the default Processing Template is either a yellow-to-red ramp or a blue-to-red ramp. Click the drop-down, and select “None”, then “OK”. Now you will have the actual pixel values displayed in the map, and available to any geoprocessing tool that takes a raster as input. Below is a screenshot of ArcGIS Pro with a UHI image service loaded, color ramp removed, and symbology changed back to a yellow-to-red ramp (a classified renderer can also be used): Other Sources of Heat Island InformationPlease see these websites for valuable information on heat islands and to learn about exciting new heat island research being led by scientists across the country:EPA’s Heat Island Resource CenterDr. Ladd Keith, University of Arizona Dr. Ben McMahan, University of Arizona Dr. Jeremy Hoffman, Science Museum of Virginia Dr. Hunter Jones, NOAADaphne Lundi, Senior Policy Advisor, NYC Mayor's Office of Recovery and ResiliencyDisclaimer/FeedbackWith nearly 14,000 cities represented, checking each city's heat island raster for quality assurance would be prohibitively time-consuming, so The Trust for Public Land checked a statistically significant sample size for data quality. The sample passed all quality checks, with about 98.5% of the output cities error-free, but there could be instances where the user finds errors in the data. These errors will most likely take the form of a line of discontinuity where there is no city boundary; this type of error is caused by large temperature differences in two adjacent Landsat scenes, so the discontinuity occurs along scene boundaries (see figure below). The Trust for Public Land would appreciate feedback on these errors so that version 2 of the national UHI dataset can be improved. Contact Pete.Aniello@tpl.org with feedback.

In 2024, Anchorage, Alaska led all U.S. cities in parkland per 1,000 residents, offering roughly 3,183 acres. Chesapeake, Virginia followed in second place, with 243 acres per 1,000 residents.

The 2015 TIGER Geodatabases are extracts of selected nation based and state based geographic and cartographic information from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File/Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) database. The geodatabases include feature class layers of information for the fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Island areas (American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the United States Virgin Islands). The geodatabases do not contain any sensitive data. The 2015 TIGER Geodatabases are designed for use with Esriâ s ArcGIS.

        The State Geodatabase for Indiana geodatabase contains multiple layers. These layers are the Block, Block Group, Census Designated Place, Census
        Tract, Consolidated City, County, County Subdivision and Incorporated Place layers.

        Block Groups (BGs) are clusters of blocks within the same census tract. Each census tract contains at least one BG, and BGs are uniquely numbered
        within census tracts. BGs have a valid code range of 0 through 9. BGs have the same first digit of their 4-digit census block number from the same
        decennial census. For example, tabulation blocks numbered 3001, 3002, 3003,.., 3999 within census tract 1210.02 are also within BG 3 within that
        census tract. BGs coded 0 are intended to only include water area, no land area, and they are generally in territorial seas, coastal water, and
        Great Lakes water areas. Block groups generally contain between 600 and 3,000 people. A BG usually covers a contiguous area but never crosses
        county or census tract boundaries. They may, however, cross the boundaries of other geographic entities like county subdivisions, places, urban
        areas, voting districts, congressional districts, and American Indian / Alaska Native / Native Hawaiian areas. The BG boundaries in this release are
        those that were delineated as part of the Census Bureau's Participant Statistical Areas Program (PSAP) for the 2010 Census. 

        An incorporated place, or census designated place, is established to provide governmental functions for a concentration of people as opposed to a
        minor civil division (MCD), which generally is created to provide services or administer an area without regard, necessarily, to population. Places
        always nest within a state, but may extend across county and county subdivision boundaries. An incorporated place usually is a city, town, village,
        or borough, but can have other legal descriptions. CDPs are delineated for the decennial census as the statistical counterparts of incorporated
        places. CDPs are delineated to provide data for settled concentrations of population that are identifiable by name, but are not legally
        incorporated under the laws of the state in which they are located. The boundaries for CDPs often are defined in partnership with state, local,
        and/or tribal officials and usually coincide with visible features or the boundary of an adjacent incorporated place or another legal entity. CDP
        boundaries often change from one decennial census to the next with changes in the settlement pattern and development; a CDP with the same name as in
        an earlier census does not necessarily have the same boundary. The only population/housing size requirement for CDPs is that they must contain some
        housing and population. The boundaries of most incorporated places in this shapefile are as of January 1, 2013, as reported through the Census
        Bureau's Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS). Limited updates that occurred after January 1, 2013, such as newly incorporated places, are also
        included. The boundaries of all CDPs were delineated as part of the Census Bureau's Participant Statistical Areas Program (PSAP) for the 2010
        Census.

        The primary purpose of census tracts is to provide a stable set of geographic units for the presentation of census data and comparison back to
        previous decennial censuses. Census tracts generally have a population size between 1,200 and 8,000 people, with an optimum size of 4,000 people.
        When first delineated, census tracts were designed to be homogeneous with respect to population characteristics, economic status, and living
        conditions. The spatial size of census tracts varies widely depending on the density of settlement. Physical changes in street patterns caused by
        highway construction, new development, and so forth, may require boundary revisions. In addition, census tracts occasionally are split due to
        population growth, or combined as a result of substantial population decline. Census tract boundaries generally follow visible and identifiable
        features. They may follow legal boundaries such as minor civil division (MCD) or incorporated place boundaries in some States and situations to
        allow for census tract-to-governmental unit relationships where the governmental boundaries tend to remain unchanged between censuses. State and
        county boundaries always are census tract boundaries in the standard census geographic hierarchy. In a few rare instances, a census tract may
        consist of noncontiguous areas. These noncontiguous areas may occur where the census tracts are coextensive with all or parts of legal entities
        that are themselves noncontiguous. For the 2010 Census, the census tract code range of 9400 through 9499 was enforced for census tracts that
        include a majority American Indian population according to Census 2000 data and/or their area was primarily covered by federally recognized American
        Indian reservations and/or off-reservation trust lands; the code range 9800 through 9899 was enforced for those census tracts that contained little
        or no population and represented a relatively large special land use area such as a National Park, military installation, or a business/industrial
        park; and the code range 9900 through 9998 was enforced for those census tracts that contained only water area, no land area. 

         A consolidated city is a unit of local government for which the functions of an incorporated place and its county or minor civil division (MCD) have
        merged. This action results in both the primary incorporated place and the county or MCD continuing to exist as legal entities, even though the
        county or MCD performs few or no governmental functions and has few or no elected officials. Where this occurs, and where one or more other
        incorporated places in the county or MCD continue to function as separate governments, even though they have been included in the consolidated
        government, the primary incorporated place is referred to as a consolidated city. The Census Bureau classifies the separately incorporated places
        within the consolidated city as place entities and creates a separate place (balance) record for the portion of the consolidated city not within any
        other place. The boundaries of the consolidated cities are those as of January 1, 2013, as reported through the Census Bureau's Boundary and
        Annexation Survey(BAS).

        The primary legal divisions of most states are termed counties. In Louisiana, these divisions are known as parishes. In Alaska, which has no
        counties, the equivalent entities are the organized boroughs, city and boroughs, municipalities, and for the unorganized area, census areas. The
        latter are delineated cooperatively for statistical purposes by the State of Alaska and the Census Bureau. In four states (Maryland, Missouri,
        Nevada, and Virginia), there are one or more incorporated places that are independent of any county organization and thus constitute primary
        divisions of their states. These incorporated places are known as independent cities and are treated as equivalent entities for purposes of data
        presentation. The District of Columbia and Guam have no primary divisions, and each area is considered an equivalent entity for purposes of data
        presentation. The Census Bureau treats the following entities as equivalents of counties for purposes of data presentation: Municipios in Puerto
        Rico, Districts and Islands in American Samoa, Municipalities in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Islands in the U.S. Virgin
        Islands. The entire area of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Island Areas is covered by counties or equivalent entities. The boundaries for
        counties and equivalent entities are mostly as of January 1, 2013, primarily as reported through the Census Bureau's Boundary and Annexation Survey
        (BAS). However, some changes made after January 2013, including the addition and deletion of counties, are included.

        County subdivisions are the primary divisions of

United States US: Population in Urban Agglomerations of More Than 1 Million: as % of Total Population data was reported at 45.896 % in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of 45.666 % for 2016. United States US: Population in Urban Agglomerations of More Than 1 Million: as % of Total Population data is updated yearly, averaging 42.013 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 45.896 % in 2017 and a record low of 38.733 % in 1960. United States US: Population in Urban Agglomerations of More Than 1 Million: as % of Total Population 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 urban agglomerations of more than one million is the percentage of a country's population living in metropolitan areas that in 2018 had a population of more than one million people.; ; United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects.; Weighted average;

Graph and download economic data for Population Estimate, Total, Not Hispanic or Latino, White Alone (5-year estimate) in Manassas city, VA (B03002003E051683) from 2009 to 2023 about Manassas City, VA; white; Washington; non-hispanic; VA; estimate; 5-year; persons; population; and USA.

Note: The schema changed in February 2025 - please see below. We will post a roadmap of upcoming changes, but service URLs and schema are now stable. For deployment status of new services beginning in February 2025, see https://gis.data.ca.gov/pages/city-and-county-boundary-data-status. Additional roadmap and status links at the bottom of this metadata.

Purpose
City boundaries along with third party identifiers used to join in external data. Boundaries are from the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA). These boundaries are the best available statewide data source in that CDTFA receives changes in incorporation and boundary lines from the Board of Equalization, who receives them from local jurisdictions for tax purposes. Boundary accuracy is not guaranteed, and though CDTFA works to align boundaries based on historical records and local changes, errors will exist. If you require a legal assessment of boundary location, contact a licensed surveyor.

This dataset joins in multiple attributes and identifiers from the US Census Bureau and Board on Geographic Names to facilitate adding additional third party data sources. In addition, we attach attributes of our own to ease and reduce common processing needs and questions. Finally, coastal buffers are separated into separate polygons, leaving the land-based portions of jurisdictions and coastal buffers in adjacent polygons. This feature layer is for public use.

Related Layers

This dataset is part of a grouping of many datasets:

1. Cities: Only the city boundaries and attributes, without any unincorporated areas
   • With Coastal Buffers
   • Without Coastal Buffers (this dataset)
2. Counties: Full county boundaries and attributes, including all cities within as a single polygon
   • With Coastal Buffers
   • Without Coastal Buffers
3. Cities and Full Counties: A merge of the other two layers, so polygons overlap within city boundaries. Some customers require this behavior, so we provide it as a separate service.
   • With Coastal Buffers
   • Without Coastal Buffers
4. City and County Abbreviations
5. Unincorporated Areas (Coming Soon)
6. Census Designated Places
7. Cartographic Coastline
   • Polygon
   • Line source (Coming Soon)

Point of Contact

California Department of Technology, Office of Digital Services, odsdataservices@state.ca.gov

Field and Abbreviation Definitions

• CDTFA_CITY: CDTFA incorporated city name
• CDTFA_COUNTY: CDTFA county name. For counties, this will be the name of the polygon itself. For cities, it is the name of the county the city polygon is within.
• CDTFA_COPRI: county number followed by the 3-digit city primary number used in the Board of Equalization"s 6-digit tax rate area numbering system. The boundary data originate with CDTFA's teams managing tax rate information, so this field is preserved and flows into this dataset.
• CENSUS_GEOID: numeric geographic identifiers from the US Census Bureau
• CENSUS_PLACE_TYPE: City, County, or Town, stripped off the census name for identification purpose.
• GNIS_PLACE_NAME: Board on Geographic Names authorized nomenclature for area names published in the Geographic Name Information System
• GNIS_ID: The numeric identifier from the Board on Geographic Names that can be used to join these boundaries to other datasets utilizing this identifier.
• CDT_CITY_ABBR: Abbreviations of incorporated area names - originally derived from CalTrans Division of Local Assistance and now managed by CDT. Abbreviations are 4 characters. Not present in the county-specific layers.
• CDT_COUNTY_ABBR: Abbreviations of county names - originally derived from CalTrans Division of Local Assistance and now managed by CDT. Abbreviations are 3 characters.
• CDT_NAME_SHORT: The name of the jurisdiction (city or county) with the word "City" or "County" stripped off the end. Some changes may come to how we process this value to make it more consistent.
• AREA_SQMI: The area of the administrative unit (city or county) in square miles, calculated in EPSG 3310 California Teale Albers.
• OFFSHORE: Indicates if the polygon is a coastal buffer. Null for land polygons. Additional values include "ocean" and "bay".
• PRIMARY_DOMAIN: Currently empty/null for all records. Placeholder field for official URL of the city or county
• CENSUS_POPULATION: Currently null for all records. In the future, it will include the most recent US Census population estimate for the jurisdiction.
• GlobalID: While all of the layers we provide in this dataset include a GlobalID field with unique values, we do not recommend you make any use of it. The GlobalID field exists to support offline sync, but is not persistent, so data keyed to it will be orphaned at our next update. Use one of the other persistent identifiers, such as GNIS_ID or GEOID instead.

In 2023, New York led the ranking of the largest built-up urban areas worldwide, with a land area of ****** square kilometers. Boston-Providence and Tokyo-Yokohama were the second and third largest megacities globally that year.