Travel Tips

I am a country boy who loves the city. I have been studying Urban Geography at the University of Colorado in Denver. One of the harder questions to answer is when someone asks the question "what is the population of a city."

Most people are familiar with two common methods of defining "what" is the city. Both of which are based more on political units. The first being the city limits - which in the case of most American cities is much smaller than the actual area of ajoining urbanized areas. The City of New York has around 7 million people within the city limits, this is a misleading number as the city of New York has spilled beyond the political city boundary.

The second is what is called the Metropolitan area, formed from counties that are dependent on the core city. What is wrong with this definition? Very often the counties on the fringe have large swaths of Rural areas that I would never consider part of the city. Here in the Denver area Arapahoe County is included in the Denver Metropolitan area. The western third of this county is Urbanized, but you can drive another 80 km to the east in this same county, still within the Denver Metropolitan area and see more cows than you do houses.

Thanks to the US Census Bureau we have what I believe is a much better definition. The Urban Area and Urban Cluster definitions from the 2000 census.

These are based on a core "high density" area using census divisions called census block groups (usually consisting of around 1000 people) that have at least 1000 people per square mile (2560 per sq. km). From this center of census block groups adjoining census block groups are included if they have a population density of at least 500 people per square mile (1280 per sq. km).

If two Urban Areas join through a linking area of Urbanization the two Urban Areas become one. Some are very small - others like NYC or LA are very large. You can explore the Fact Finder system from the Census Bureau yourself to find out about any place in the US.

1. New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT............. 17,799,861
2. Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA.............11,789,487
3. Chicago, IL-IN.................................... 8,307,904
4. Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD.................5,149,079
5. Miami, FL...........................................4,919,036
6. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX.............4,145,659
7. Boston, MA-NH-RI...............................4,032,484
8. Washington DC, MD-VA.......................3,933,920
9. Detroit, MI...........................................3,903,377
10. Houston, TX.......................................3,822,509
11. Atlanta, GA.......................................3,499,840
12. San Francisco-Oakland, CA................2,995,769
13. Phoenix-Mesa, AZ..............................2,907,049
14. Seattle, WA.......................................2,712,205
15. San Diego, CA...................................2,674,436
16. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN....................2,388,593
17. St. Louis, MO-IL.................................2,077,662
18. Baltimore, MD....................................2,076,354
19. Tampa-St. Petersburgh, FL..................2,062,339

20. Denver-Aurora, CO...............................1,984,887
21. Cleveland, OH.....................................1,786,647
22. Pittsburgh, PA.....................................1,753,136
23. Portland, OR-WA.................................1,583,138
24. San Jose, CA......................................1,538,312
25. Riverside-San Bernadillo, CA................1,506,816