How Many Cities are in the United States? 2026
What’s the definition of a “city”? A city is a large gathering of humans or a large town.
The Distinction Between Towns and Cities
What’s the difference between a town and a city? A town is typically an unincorporated community with no governmental powers and services provided by the county government. A city is an incorporated community with governmental powers delegated by the state or county and services provided by the city government.
The Census Bureau’s urban and rural classification is distinct from a community’s legal designation as a city or town. Under the criteria applied following the 2020 Census, an urban area must include at least 5,000 people or 2,000 housing units and meet density and other requirements. This replaced the older 2,500-person qualification threshold; it is not a minimum population requirement for an incorporated city.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s release published December 29, 2022, 80.0% of the U.S. population lived in urban areas and 20.0% in rural areas in 2020. The urban share was 80.7% in 2010, but the Census Bureau attributed the small decline largely to changes in classification criteria rather than substantial urban-to-rural migration. The number of people living in urban areas increased by 6.4% over that decade despite the lower population share.
City Classifications
Furthermore, cities are split into small cities, medium cities, large cities, metropolises, conurbations, and megalopolises. Small cities, also known as boroughs, have populations below 100,000 and function as a municipality or subdivision of a city. Medium cities are between 100,000 and 300,000 people and have abundant services but not all. Large cities have populations between 300,000 and 1 million and many services. Metropolises are a large city and its suburbs have 1 to 3 million people. Conurbations are a group of metropolises that have 3 to 10 million people. Megalopolises are a group of conurbations with populations of 10 million or more.
Cities by the Numbers
As of 2018, there are 19,495 incorporated cities, towns and villages in the United States. 14,768 of these have populations below 5,000. Only ten have populations above 1 million and none are above 10 million. 310 cities are considered at least medium cities with populations of 100,000 or more.
New York City: America’s Largest Urban Center
The largest city in the U.S., and is part of the Northeast megalopolis, is New York City with a population of 8.5 million people. New York City has five boroughs: Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn Queens, and Staten Island. New York City is also the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area (4,585 square miles) and by population by both Metro Statistical Area (20.3 million) and combined statistical area (23.7 million).
As of 2018, 127 million people, about 40% of the U.S. population, lived in cities with 50,000 or more residents. These historical city-population figures use a different year and geography from the Census Bureau’s updated 2020 urban and rural classification.
