Largest Cities in the United States by Area 2024

Cities in the United States come in all different sizes with unique environments and cultures. Cities can be expansive urban areas that cover miles of land, or dense, heavily populated metropolises.

When evaluating how “large” a city is, the population is typically used as the measurement. Cities are less commonly measured by the size of their land area. Often, the land area does not correlate with population size. For example, New York City has a population of 8.623 million people but is 302.6 mi² (784 km²) because New York is so densely populated with approximately 27,000 people per square mile.

The largest cities by area are very different from the largest cities by population. The top ten largest cities by area are:

1. Sitka, AK (2,870.3 mi²)
2. Juneau, AK (2,701.9 mi²)
3. Wrangell, AK (2,542.5 mi²)
4. Anchorage, AK (1,704.7 mi²)
5. Jacksonville, FL (747 mi²)
6. Anaconda, MT (735.6 mi²)
7. Butte, MT (716.2 mi²)
8. Oklahoma City, OK (607 mi²)
9. Houston, TX (599.6 mi²)
10. Phoenix, AZ (516.7 mi²)

The largest city in the United States by area is Sitka, Alaska. Sitka spans over 2,870.3 mi² (7,434.04 km²) but has a population of about only 10,000 people. The four largest cities in the United States are located in the southeastern part of Alaska, and are significantly larger than any other city in the United States.

All other cities in the United States smaller than the top ten are under 500 mi².