California & Texas Each Have More Than 10 Cities With 250K People 🏙️
What We’re Showing
This map shows the number of incorporated areas (aka cities) with 250,000+ residents in each state.
Key Takeaways
- California and Texas—also the most populous states in the country—each have more than 10 cities with at least a quarter of a million inhabitants. Together, these two states account for half of the top 10 largest cities by population in the country.
- Two other warm weather states, Arizona and Florida, also have a large number of populous cities.
- Eighteen states in total—including South Carolina, Alabama, and Utah to name a few—have no incorporated area with 250,000+ residents.
Understanding the Numbers
While big cities we're familiar with all have a central city, they often have suburbs which at their own distinct incorporated areas as well. This can lead to interesting results in the final count. For example, Nevada has two main population centers: Las Vegas and Reno. The reason there are four cities shown for Nevada in the map above is because two of Las Vegas' suburbs, Henderson and North Las Vegas, each have populations that crack the 250K mark.
Conversely, in South Carolina, we end up with no cities listed. The state's urban areas are divided up in such a way that none of them (including the central cities of Charleston, Columbia, and Greenville) end up passing 250K in population.
Dataset
State | Cities with at least 250,000 people |
---|---|
California | 15 |
Texas | 12 |
Arizona | 6 |
Florida | 6 |
North Carolina | 5 |
Ohio | 4 |
Nevada | 4 |
Colorado | 3 |
Tennessee | 2 |
New York | 2 |
Pennsylvania | 2 |
Indiana | 2 |
Oklahoma | 2 |
Kentucky | 2 |
Wisconsin | 2 |
Missouri | 2 |
Nebraska | 2 |
Virginia | 2 |
Minnesota | 2 |
New Jersey | 2 |
Illinois | 1 |
Washington | 1 |
District of Columbia | 1 |
Massachusetts | 1 |
Oregon | 1 |
Michigan | 1 |
New Mexico | 1 |
Maryland | 1 |
Georgia | 1 |
Kansas | 1 |
Louisiana | 1 |
Hawaii | 1 |
Alaska | 1 |
Data sources
Based on 2024 population projections made from recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Note: "Cities" in this visualization are defined as incorporated places. This means that many urban areas are actually divided into multiple incorporated areas.