County map with cities

Why a city can appear in only one county

Each place has one internal point, a single coordinate that the Census Bureau places inside the place. A city that spans two counties is listed only in the county that holds that point. The rest of the city is still there on the map, but the pin appears in one county.

How to use it

1. Open the County list and pick a county. Entries show the county name, state, and FIPS code, in FIPS order, which groups them by state.
2. Press Show places. The tool loads the place file and the county outlines, which can take a few seconds the first time.
3. The map zooms to the county, draws its outline, and pins each place. The line above the list says how many places were found.
4. The list gives each place with its 2024 population, largest first. Choosing a new county clears the old result.

How places are matched to a county

The place list joins Census Vintage 2024 subcounty population estimates to internal points from the 2024 Gazetteer. For the county you pick, the tool keeps the places in the same state and tests each internal point against the county outline. The results are sorted by population.

Only incorporated places, such as cities, towns, villages, and boroughs, are in the estimates file. Census-designated places, which are unincorporated communities, are not. Many large suburbs in states like Maryland, Virginia, and Hawaii are CDPs and will not appear.

Known issue with some large cities

The current build of the place file keeps some partial rows for cities that span more than one county. For those cities, the population shown can be one county's share, and a few large cities are missing. The methodology page tracks the fix. County totals on the county pages are not affected, because they come from the county estimates file.

Using the list

The list is a quick way to see how a county's population is spread across its towns. Compare the sum of the listed places with the county's total on its county page: the difference is roughly the population living outside incorporated places, plus anyone in places under 1,000.

For a list around a point instead of inside a county, use cities within a radius.