United States Cities Database

Is the Basic (free) version sufficient for my needs?

The Basic (free) database will meet many users' needs. You may want to purchase the Pro or Comprehensive versions if:

• You need data for rural towns/villages or places that aren't incorporated municipalities.
• You need demographic data such as age, race, education or income.
• You don't want to (or can't) attribute your use of our data on a public-facing website.

What is an unincorporated populated place?

These are typically rural towns/villages that have commonly known names but do not exist as legal entities.

Do you omit any populated places?

Yes. For clarity we don't show multiple places with the same name in the same state. We only show the most important place of a given name in each state. The only exception to this is when multiple places with the same name are tracked by the Census (signaling their importance). Also, we omit some unincorporated places that are particularly insignificant.

Do you include townships?

Townships are technically county subdivisions and often act more like a county than a city/town. However, in the Northeast many townships are functionally equivalent to cities. Therefore, we include townships in the following states: ME, VT, NH, MA, RI, CT, NJ, NY, PA. If a place is a township the field township is TRUE.

Am I allowed to redistribute the database if I purchase a paid license?

No. You are not allowed to sell the database or make it publicly available. However, you can make copies and backups of the data. You are also allowed to query the database to power publicly facing applications such as a store locator. To learn more, read the full license terms.

How often do you release updates?

It depends, we monitor our sources and release new versions when we have more current data, typically a few times a year. Upon purchase, you can elect to receive email alerts when we release new versions of the database.

Why should I trust this data?

This database was aggregated from authoritative sources and carefully processed by SimpleMaps. We've been developing and selling interactive maps to Fortune 500 companies and prominent international organizations for over 14 years. Over this time, we've learned a lot about geographic data. To get a sense of the expertise and support we offer, check out some of the testimonials from our happy customers.

If I use the free database, what type of attribution is required?

If you use the Basic (free) database, you must link back to this page:
https://simplemaps.com/data/us-cities
from a public webpage where you are using the data. If you want to use the data internally, you must link back to this page from your firm's website on a page that can be easily found though links on the root domain. The link must be clearly visible to the human eye.

How recent are the demographic variables such as income_household_median?

Nearly all of the demographic variables come from the 2022 American Community Survey (5-year estimate) which is run by the United States Census Bureau. The value of population is estimated using 2022 ACS 1-year data (when available for urban areas) and 2022 ACS 5-year data when not.

How come some demographic variables are blank (empty strings) for some cities?

Demographic variables are only available for places recognized by the Census. Also, the Census Bureau will only provide demographic data if the city/town is large enough to protect resident privacy. So, for smaller places, some variables may not be available.

How do I calculate the distance between two cities?

We've published free formulas in popular programming languages. Check them out.

Does the database include commonly known populated places even if they don't have a legal/municipal existence?

Yes, such places are included in our Pro and Comprehensive databases. The field incorporated will have a value of FALSE for such places.

Does the database contain neighborhoods?

No, the database does not typically contained named places that are within other listed towns/cities. The only exception to this is that both New York City and its boroughs (Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island) are included. If you need neighborhoods, we have a US Neighborhoods Database.

How do you determine which zip codes are in a city?

Our zip code data comes from our Zip Code Database. Most zip codes are Zip Code Tabulation Areas and are represented as a geographic area. We consider a ZCTA to be part of a city if the area intersecting both the ZCTA and city is at least 10 percent of the area of either the city or the ZCTA. This means that a ZCTA can be in more than one city. If this method does not result in a zip code, we will use the closest zip in the immediate area. For some villages in remote locations (like the Aleutian Islands) no zip code exists.

Has your database been updated with results from the 2020 Census?

Yes, all latitude and longitude coordinates for ZCTAs (and geographic relationships) are now based on ZCTA shapes from the 2020 Census. We're also now using the 2022 American Community Survey (5-year estimate) for demographic data.

Can you provide more detailed demographic data from the Census?

In some cases, yes. For example, we do store disaggregated age buckets (every five years) internally. Let us know what you're looking for and we'll let you know if we can provide it as part of the Comprehensive Database (no additional charge) or whether we could collect for you for a fee.