A comprehensive listing of US cities and towns including population figures, geographic coordinates, state assignments, and timezone identifiers. Whether you are building a city autocomplete, analyzing demographic trends, or seeding a geographic database, this dataset provides the foundation you need.
Pro tip: Use the population column to filter cities by size when building location selectors — showing only cities above a threshold keeps dropdown menus manageable for your users.
Select which columns to include in your download.
About the US Cities Dataset
This dataset catalogs cities and incorporated places across all 50 US states and territories. Each record includes the city name, state abbreviation, estimated population, latitude and longitude coordinates, and the IANA timezone identifier. Population figures are drawn from US Census Bureau estimates, and geographic coordinates represent the city center point suitable for mapping and distance calculations.
Common Use Cases
City-level geographic data supports a wide range of development and business scenarios:
- Autocomplete and search: Power city search fields in registration forms, shipping address inputs, and job posting platforms with instant suggestions as users type.
- Market analysis: Segment customers by city and population size to identify underserved markets, plan expansion strategies, and allocate advertising budgets by metro area.
- Map visualizations: Plot city markers on interactive maps using the latitude and longitude columns, sized or colored by population to reveal geographic patterns at a glance.
- Timezone-aware scheduling: Display meeting times or event schedules in the correct local timezone for each city, preventing confusion for users across time zones.
Column Reference
The dataset provides the following columns for each city record:
- city — The official city or place name as recognized by the US Census Bureau.
- state — The two-letter USPS state abbreviation (e.g.
CA,TX,FL). - population — The estimated population count based on the most recent Census Bureau annual estimates.
- latitude — The latitude of the city center in decimal degrees.
- longitude — The longitude of the city center in decimal degrees.
- timezone — The IANA timezone identifier for the city (e.g.
America/Chicago,America/Denver).
Population Data Considerations
Population figures represent incorporated place boundaries rather than metropolitan statistical areas. A city like San Francisco shows its city-proper population, not the broader Bay Area metro population. For metro-level analysis, aggregate multiple city records that fall within the same metropolitan boundary. Population estimates are updated periodically and reflect the most recent Census Bureau release available at the time of dataset compilation.
Building a City Selector
When using this data to build a city autocomplete or dropdown, consider filtering by population to keep the list practical. Including every census-designated place produces thousands of entries that can overwhelm users. A common approach is to include cities above 10,000 population for general-purpose selectors and the full dataset for specialized geographic applications. The JSON format works particularly well for client-side autocomplete libraries because each record is a self-contained object that can be filtered and displayed without additional joins or lookups.