Find cities in radius

How the list is built

For each place, the tool measures the great-circle distance from your center to the place's internal point with the haversine formula on a sphere of radius 6,371.0088 km. Places at or under the radius are kept, sorted by distance, and pinned on the map. The table shows the first 200, and the total row counts all of them.

How to use it

1. Click the map or search a place to set the center of the circle.
2. Drag the Radius slider. The circle redraws and the list updates as you move it, from 1 to 500 miles.
3. The card under the slider gives the circle's area, circumference, and center coordinates.
4. The table lists places inside the circle with their distance in kilometers and 2024 population. Up to 200 rows are shown and up to 300 places are pinned on the map.

What counts as a city here

The list comes from the Census Bureau's subcounty population estimates, which cover incorporated places: cities, towns, villages, and boroughs. Census-designated places are unincorporated and are not in that file. So large unincorporated communities, common in some states, are absent even when they have tens of thousands of residents.

A place is in or out based on one point. A big city whose internal point sits just outside the circle is left out even if its edge crosses the line.

The circle

The circle on the map is geodesic: every point on its edge is the same great-circle distance from the center. Its area is measured on the sphere, which matters at large radii where flat geometry would overstate it. The center coordinates are shown so you can record them.

A radius is a straight-line distance, not a travel time. For how far you can drive in 30 minutes, use the drive time map.

Known issue with some large cities

The current place file keeps some partial rows for cities that span more than one county, so a few large cities show a reduced population or are missing. The methodology page tracks the fix. For a population total that is not affected, the population within a radius tool also reports a county-based figure.

Picking the center point

The result depends on where you put the center. A search for a city name drops the center at the point OpenStreetMap uses for that city, usually downtown. To measure from a specific address, search the full address or click the exact spot at street zoom. Moving the center a few miles can add or drop places near the edge of a small circle, so check the edge of the list when the answer matters.