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We often think of a city's population as that of the city proper. But in many parts of the country, this isn't how a city is thought of at all. For example, where I used to live - Alexandria, Virginia - the city officially had 139,966 people in 2010 (the population within Alexandria city), yet people who had "Alexandria, Virginia" addresses numbered a whopping 321,490 people. So nearly 180,000 'Alexandrians' lived outside of the city proper.
I have a colleague at work who calls himself an Alexandrian. But he lives in adjacent Rose Hill in Fairfax County. He has an Alexandria, VA, postal address, but doesn't like it when I point out that he's from Fairfax, not Alexandria. To him, the city in his address is where he lives. He doesn't really care about municipal boundaries.
I thought this would be an interesting thread as it shows how the divergence between the population in the city proper and those who live under "x city" addresses.
Data comes from Localista and is from 2010, so is a bit outdated by now, but still a good proxy. Please note that this is based on the "primary/preferred city" of a given zip code. 55431, for example, is in Bloomington, Minnesota's city proper - yet while Bloomington, MN, is accepted by the Post Office, they consider that a Minneapolis zip code. So 55431 in the USPS database is a Minneapolis address.
56 Cities That Anchor 1+ Million MSAs: 2010 Postal Boundary Population (2010 City Proper Population):
Atlanta: 900,273 (420,003)
Austin: 940,359 (790,390)
Baltimore: 632,623 (620,961)
Birmingham: 493,806 (212,237)
Boston: 215,443 (617,594)
Buffalo: 564,824 (261,310)
Charlotte: 790,689 (731,424)
Chicago: 2,680,484 (2,695,598)
Cincinnati: 795,220 (296,943)
Cleveland: 769,341 (396,815)
Columbus: 783,285 (787,033)
Dallas: 1,263,321 (1,197,816)
Denver: 958,706 (600,158)
Detroit: 673,342 (713,777)
Fresno: 570,271 (494,665)
Grand Rapids: 348,860 (188,040)
Hartford: 123,919 (124,775)
Honolulu: 403,114 (337,256)
Houston: 2,906,700 (2,099,451)
Indianapolis: 910,148 (820,445)
Jacksonville: 810,498 (821,784)
Kansas City: 545,132 (459,787)
Las Vegas: 1,417,793 (583,756)
Los Angeles: 2,378,448 (3,792,621)
Louisville: 736,284 (597,337)
Memphis: 697,385 (646,889)
Miami: 1,723,766 (399,457)
Milwaukee: 808,042 (594,833)
Minneapolis: 1,022,298 (382,578)
Nashville: 431,336 (601,222)
New Orleans: 382,333 (343,829)
New York: 1,577,385 (8,175,133)
Oklahoma City: 640,470 (579,999)
Orlando: 878,243 (238,300)
Philadelphia: 1,526,206 (1,526,006)
Phoenix: 1,312,922 (1,445,632)
Pittsburgh: 687,276 (305,704)
Portland: 841,711 (583,776)
Providence: 203,571 (178,042)
Raleigh: 489,514 (403,892)
Richmond: 364,141 (204,214)
Riverside: 419,138 (303,871)
Rochester: 478,127 (210,565)
Sacramento: 757,530 (466,488)
Saint Louis: 927,396 (319,294)
Salt Lake City: 594,043 (186,440)
San Antonio: 1,585,405 (1,327,407)
San Diego: 1,241,364 (1,307,402)
San Francisco: 805,301 (805,235)
San Jose: 973,849 (945,942)
Seattle: 837,792 (608,660)
Tampa: 717,255 (335,709)
Tucson: 880,383 (520,116)
Tulsa: 413,574 (391,906)
Virginia Beach: 437,994 (437,994)
Washington: 601,723 (601,723)
Last edited by manitopiaaa; 04-03-2022 at 08:49 PM..
The problem for New York City is that it is divided into 5 separate counties (boroughs) which have for historical reasons have separate postal systems.
In Queens for instance, the borough is subdivided that you can tell what town/city it used to be part of (Flushing, Jamaica, Long Island City, etc.) just by looking at its zip code. For instance, all Queens south shore communities that have the first three numbers 114 as part of their zip code used to be part of the town of Jamaica.
The problem for New York City is that it is divided into 5 separate counties (boroughs) which have for historical reasons have separate postal systems.
In Queens for instance, the borough is subdivided that you can tell what town/city it used to be part of (Flushing, Jamaica, Long Island City, etc.) just by looking at its zip code. For instance, all Queens south shore communities that have the first three numbers 114 as part of their zip code used to be part of the town of Jamaica.
Same for Baltimore. There is a Baltimore city and entirely seperate Baltimore county that surrounds it.
How did you get this data? I'm curious about some cities in my state now
Type in 'Localistica Indiana' in Google and it should pop up (CTRL+F for "View all Cities Data"). To see the postal boundaries, type the city into 'Zip Atlas'
Here are the cities over 50,000 in Indiana by postal boundary population (again, 2010 Census) with 2010 Census counts for city propers in parentheses:
Anderson: 79,310 (56,083)
Bloomington: 126,925 (80,299)
Carmel: 77,123 (83,885)
Columbus: 67,468 (27,866)
Crown Point: 60,619 (44,088)
Elkhart: 97,528 (51,911)
Evansville: 182,901 (120,069)
Fishers: 73,614 (77,287)
Fort Wayne: 305,409 (253,703)
Gary: 85,171 (80,256)
Goshen: 56,775 (32,572)
Greenwood: 78,968 (51,110)
Hammond: 73,569 (80,828)
Indianapolis: 910,148 (820,443)
Kokomo: 73,330 (58,189)
Lafayette: 98,078 (68,864)
Mishawaka: 55,841 (48,292)
Muncie: 93,768 (70,206)
Noblesville: 64,438 (52,378)
South Bend: 145,459 (101,239)
Terre Haute: 95,238 (60,791)
Valparaiso: 78,553 (31,740)
West Lafayette: 66,972 (41,997)
Crown Point for the win (since it takes in much of southern Lake County)!
The problem for New York City is that it is divided into 5 separate counties (boroughs) which have for historical reasons have separate postal systems.
In Queens for instance, the borough is subdivided that you can tell what town/city it used to be part of (Flushing, Jamaica, Long Island City, etc.) just by looking at its zip code. For instance, all Queens south shore communities that have the first three numbers 114 as part of their zip code used to be part of the town of Jamaica.
Yes, New York is an odd one.
By population, the ten biggest cities in New York by postal boundary are:
The problem for New York City is that it is divided into 5 separate counties (boroughs) which have for historical reasons have separate postal systems.
In Queens for instance, the borough is subdivided that you can tell what town/city it used to be part of (Flushing, Jamaica, Long Island City, etc.) just by looking at its zip code. For instance, all Queens south shore communities that have the first three numbers 114 as part of their zip code used to be part of the town of Jamaica.
Boston’s a little bit similar in that folks tend to use their neighborhood over the larger city in the addresses. I’m assuming that’s why the “Boston” postal address only has ~200k people in it.
Same for Baltimore. There is a Baltimore city and entirely seperate Baltimore county that surrounds it.
At least for Baltimore, the "Baltimore, MD" postal addresses are closer to being in line with the city limits, with a few of them based on having the main post office inside city limits while expanding into the close-in suburbs. My maternal grandparents once had a Baltimore, MD address despite living in the county near Eastpoint Mall, even though the same zip code reaches as far as Patterson Park, well inside the city limits.
But you can see the vast expanse of "Silver Spring, MD" address that basically take narly up the entire eastern 1/4 of Montgomery County, with just a couple miles of "Burtsonville, MD" separating it from Howard County. Still, downtown Silver Spring justifies its population as it basically is the second largest/densest downtown within the state of Maryland, even if Silver Spring is not an incorporated city.
Still, some postal boundaries, like Miami for Miami-Dade, take practically the entire county. Odd to see though places like Ft. Lauderdale being "bigger" than Tampa.
For Los Angeles, I know that "Hollywood, CA" is a separate postal community just by watching TV over the years with certain address plugs, and I also believe that many San Fernando Valley communities also consist of the original town (like Van Nuys) instead of Los Angeles, in a similar manner to Queens in NYC.
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