Peak Populations

An interactive map of incorporated cities, towns, villages, and boroughs in the United States by census of peak population. This map will be updated continuously as more regions are added. The map legend can be found at the bottom of this page.

Shapefiles are sourced from the United States Census Bureau's Cartographic Boundary Files webpage for California and Illinois, and from the TIGER/Line web interface for all other states. Population data is sourced from Wikipedia historical population tables, the Census Bureau's QuickFacts, Kavi Gupta's Urban Stats, and the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division.
Historical population data for census-designated places (CDPs) created before the 2010 census can be unreliable. CDPs have been removed from these shapefiles and are not included in this map.