How many cities are there in the United States of America?

Hello lisava91,

Thank you for your question.

Surprisingly, this turned out to be a more difficult search than I
imagined! For example, you might wish to read this discussion at Free
Republic on how to define "city" and then a number of links and
interpetations for then how to determine the number of cities:

What is the Number of Cities in America???
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/985738/posts

"...I'm currently doing research about cities in America, and I need
to know the number of cities that exist and that the United States
Government recognizes as a city. I tried searching at Google and
census.gov, but neither of them could supply me an answer I'm looking
for or any contact information that I can use to call someone "In The
Know" who could get me this information. Maybe an online Almanac? I
dunno, I should try that too. But Please, if anyone on FreeRepublic
has any idea, or can help me in my search, please do! :) Thanks..."


And then, what is the United States? Are we including Puerto Rico, for example?


There are several good links presented in this discussion above
including one of my personal favorites, the Straight Dope:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/muscities.html

How many cities are there in the U.S.?

"...Dear Straight Dope:

I have a hard question for you! How many cities are in the United
States? I could not find any stats. Could you please help me and my
associates find this answer? --MAC MST.."

You will enjoy reading this answer. It is a wonderful read that finally concludes:

"..In short (well, too late for that), according to the U.S. Census
Bureau, there are 19,354 "incorporated places" in the United States.

19,355 if you have to include Pittsburgh. 

Visiting hours are between 12 and 4 in the afternoon..."

And, the US Census Bureau site also offers up information that might
be useful for you:
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTGeoSearchByListServlet?ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&_lang=en&_ts=82039462500

But search as I might, I was unable to come up with a number of cities
at that site. However, this page notes that in 1998 there were 2,578
cities in the US with populations of 10,000 or more:
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/1999/cb99-128.html

For additional information, Texas lists 2,004 incorporated cities and
210 with 10,000 or more.
http://www.texasbob.com/texfacts.html

The number of incorporated cities in California is 478.
http://www.cacities.org/doc.asp?id=53

Orgeon lists it as "cities and towns" and notes 250.
http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/coop/programs/statefact/OR.htm

New Jersey lists the number of cities as 296.
www.schools.manatee.k12.fl.us/webdisk/ lucy/WebPages/States/Projects/nj.pdf

So, based on the numbers that this sample of individual states are
turning up, I think the number of cities as 19,355 including Pittsburg
is pretty darn close if not spot on.

I hope this has been helpful.

Search Strategy:

"number of cities" +US OR "United States"
"number of cities" +"texas"
"number of cities" +"new jersey"
etc

I trust my research has provided you with a useful answer. If a link
above should fail to work or anything require further explanation or
research, please do post a Request for Clarification prior to rating
the answer and closing the question and I will be pleased to assist
further.

Regards,

-=clouseau=-