Guide
What the Census Bureau counts as a place
The Census Bureau publishes figures for 48,418 places: 19,512 incorporated places (cities, towns, villages, boroughs: governments chartered by their state), 16,088 towns and townships (county subdivisions with a local government, in 20 states) and 12,818 census-designated places, communities it draws for counting that have no local government of their own.
How many places of each kind are there?
| Kind | Places |
|---|---|
| census-designated place | 12,526 |
| township | 12,461 |
| city | 10,223 |
| town | 7,811 |
| village | 3,719 |
| borough | 1,215 |
| comunidad | 214 |
| charter township | 118 |
| zona urbana | 78 |
| plantation | 29 |
| municipality | 10 |
| unified government | 5 |
| city and borough | 3 |
| metropolitan government | 2 |
| consolidated government | 2 |
| urban county | 1 |
| metro government | 1 |
The names follow state law: a "town" in one state is a "village" or a "borough" in another, and the Census Bureau keeps the state's own word.
What is a census-designated place, and is it a city?
A census-designated place (CDP) is not a city: it is an unincorporated community the Census Bureau outlines with local officials so it can be counted, and many suburbs and resort towns are CDPs. A CDP has census figures but no city hall, so its services come from the county. The Census Bureau gives CDPs no yearly population estimate; their figures come from the census and the ACS only.
What are towns and townships?
In twelve states (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin) counties are divided into towns or townships that govern the people living in them, and in eight more (Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and South Dakota) townships govern in some or all counties. The Census Bureau counts these as county subdivisions, not places: Edison, New Jersey and Hempstead, New York are townships and towns, not cities. PlainCities lists 16,088 of them beside the places, each with the same figures, unless the town covers the same area as a place already listed (most cities in Michigan, the boroughs of New Jersey).
Can a city be in more than one county?
Yes: 1,315 places span two or more counties. Each PlainCities place page names its counties with the share of its 2020 residents in each.
What about places that are not in any city?
Many Americans live outside any city, town or CDP, in unincorporated county land. Their figures are in their county's page and its census tracts, which cover every square mile of the country.
Why do some places have a 2025 population and others do not?
The Census Bureau's yearly population estimates cover counties and the governments within them: incorporated places and, in some states, towns and townships. PlainCities shows a July 1, 2025 estimate for 35,555 places. Census-designated places are not governments, so they get no yearly estimate; their latest counts are the 2020 Census and the five-year American Community Survey. That is why a large CDP such as Urban Honolulu, HI, with 350,964 residents in 2020, shows no 2025 figure. 75 CDPs had 50,000 or more residents in 2020.
Which figures does a place page show, and where do they come from?
Three Census Bureau programs, each with its own purpose. The 2020 Census is a count of everyone, used for the official population and housing units on April 1, 2020. The American Community Survey asks a sample of households every year about income, housing, work, education and more; for small places the Bureau pools five years of answers, here 2020 to 2024, and publishes each estimate with a 90% margin of error. The population estimates carry the 2020 count forward each year with births, deaths and moves, for July 1 of each year to 2025. A place page names the source and period beside each figure.
Do place boundaries change?
Yes. Cities annex land and, less often, give it up or merge, and local governments report each change to the Census Bureau's yearly Boundary and Annexation Survey. Each data release uses the boundaries in force at the start of its year, so a place's 2020 count and its later estimates can describe slightly different areas. A place that grew mostly by annexation will show growth in its population estimates that is not a change in who lives in the same streets.
Source: 2020 Census place-by-county file; ACS 2020-2024 geographies, U.S. Census Bureau · Census Bureau geography glossary