Talk:List of United States cities by area/Archive 1

Wording in the Intro

It says: "Oklahoma City, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Antonio - all western cities that have had few or no geographical constraints to their expansion," Is Houston really a "western" city, and has Los Angeles really been free to annex surrounding lands and municipalities?

Observations

Brandon366 17:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)winston-salem is now larger and has an ara of 132.4 sq miles due to an annexation

Jon Emerson <jon@jonemerson.net>: Gellersen, sorry I was confused about what "total" area meant. And I didn't know what the "edit summary" field meant until now. Let me know if you like my clarification to the table header (to say "including water") -- because when I read it without that clarification I was very confused that San Francisco was even on there -- it's a tiny city!

In my opinion, this table should give both total areas as well as the land-only areas, and rank them by land-only areas. Land-only areas provide the most useful information, and are what should be used to calculate densities. San Francisco is quite densely populated in anyone's estimation, but if you use the total area to calculate the density, you get a figure that isn't very dense at all. If I had the time to research this and do it, I would, but it's not going to happen anytime soon. Denvoran 06:31, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Why not make the table similar to so many others in Wikipedia, where a user can click on a field to sort the table by that data? That way, users can sort the data by whichever field happens to be important to them, and the authors don't have to decide whether "land area" or "total area" is more appropriate.

Top 56?

56 is a rather oddly non-round number of cities in this table, and the lower threshhold doesn't seem to correspond to some round cutoff (e.g. 100 sq. miles or something). Any particular reason the list stops at Wichita? --Jfruh 21:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

There needs to be a cut-off, even 100 sq. miles is too low. I'd say 200, perhaps 175 at the lowest.

Honolulu

This should be adjusted. The city and county of Honolulu are coxtensive. But on other tables in the Wikipeida they only give the urbanized area in the south part of Oahu for the poulation of Honolulu. To be consistant they should only give the same area for this chart.

See the note at the bottom of the list: This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it. Denvoran 21:56, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

It makes no sense that Honolulu is not on this list. It is a consolidated city-county like many others on the list, and both the land and total area sizes would place it high up on the list. I would have added it myself, but I don't really want to renumber everything on the list. Is there an easier way to add something? User:Gopats92 03:51, 26 December 2022 (EST)

YES! How did the Census Bureau get to call an arbitrary area within the C&C of Honolulu, "Honolulu"? I blame Census because this error is bigger than Wikipedia. Honolulu has been a consolidated government for over 125 years! What gave Census the right to exclude most of the people in the C&C? Do they not want the C&C's multi-racial successes to be seen by the world?? Honolulu is about the tenth largest city (land and pop'n) in the US. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.234.112.145 (talk) 18:18, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

The reason it's not on the list is because it is not incorporated. Hawaii is the only state without any incorporated places. --Lasunncty (talk) 09:11, 29 August 2023 (UTC).

Hmm .... incorporation makes it a corporation, no? Well, Wikipedia tells us that "The consolidated city-county was established in the city charter adopted in 1907 and accepted by the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii. As a municipal corporation and jurisdiction it manages aspects of government traditionally exercised by both municipalities and counties in the rest of the United States." [1]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.234.112.145 (talk) 01:36, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Just for anyone else reading this, that quote is from the Honolulu County, Hawaii article. The Honolulu article states that it is unincorporated. I don't know the distinction between the two, or why the Census Bureau doesn't recognize Honolulu as a city, but that's just how it is. And since the Census is the source for this list, that's why it's not included. --Lasunncty (talk) 07:56, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Square Miles

The article on Memphis indicates 318 square miles (total area) not the 270 shown in this list.

Fremont, CA is 92 square miles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.144.208.171 (talk) 09:45, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Seattle

Where the hell is Seattle on this list? Tboy206 (talk) 19:47, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

This must of been vandalized. Heegoop, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

This article is so screwed up I do not know where to begin

Austin Texas has 296 square miles of total land that I corrected. But Sacramento, Helena, Carson City, Boise, Honolulu, Denver JUST TO NAME A FEW are way off on how much land they cover.Oak999 (talk) 17:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oak999 (talk • contribs) 17:19, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh my god you are so right about this article. I don't have time to do it right now, but this weekend I am going to straighten this up, if no one else has. This is ridiculous. Areas are off, the order is off (even ignoring the areas posted), etc. Unschool (talk) 18:54, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I have begun work on this, but another problem arises: None of the data, as far as I can tell, has been verified. I am working on reorganizing this (off site; I will not mess with the page itself while I'm working, until I'm ready to implant an accurate table), with an eye towards meeting WP:V, and will get it done as soon as I can. I'm hoping to be able to complete it this weekend, but I'm not optimistic. Unschool (talk) 03:59, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

This is proving more complicated than I expected. Will not be done this weekend. Unschool (talk) 04:58, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I agree... these county governments in rural areas of Kansas and Georgia, I don't think it makes sense to include them. Just because the local government decided to get rid of some local positions doesn't mean the local community is a large city by area. I think Tribune Kansas just has the same area it always did but combined its government with the County. And Statenville GA was disbanded as a municipality and just became a settlement in a county. neither of these should count. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boucher4 (talk • contribs) 20:04, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Vandalism reverted...

The bulk of the vandalism has come from the edits after 22 March 2008 at 22:19 (mostly everything after the edit from IP address 128.197.133.18.) It would seem that whoever the jerkass was that did it did it over time and by changing one thing at a time, so that simply reverting one malicious edit wouldn't do to fix it. The only way I could see to repair the article was to revert it back to the last seemingly vandalism-free version from three months ago. I tried to look through and move over the real and relevant edits made since then, but I may have missed some. But since it seems 95% of all the edits that have taken place since March 22 at 22:19 have been the vandalism edits or attempts to reverse them, I don't think that much new data was lost.

Ixnayonthetimmay (talk) 03:39, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria

What are the inclusion criteria for this list? Powers ^T 14:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Jacksonville

This article says something about consolidated-city or something like that is marked by a star. In the opening you mention Houston, Oklahoma City, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. If the ones marked by stars are consolidated-cities then Jacksonville should be on that list with Houston, Oklahoma City, Los Angeles, and Phoenix because Jacksonville is not a consolidated-city and it's not on the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.154.238.56 (talk)

This issue seems to already have been resolved, but I'd note that the listing of Houston, LA, etc. are examples of western cities with greater expansion possibilities, rather than consolidated cities. --skew-t (talk) 07:41, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

It is not resolved because Jacksonville still has a star. Jacksonville does not take up the whole county. Also some counties are smaller than others so you can't compare cities like that

—Preceding unsigned comment added by MPQzy (talk • contribs) 01:43, February 23, 2010 (UTC)

Jacksonville is in the somewhat unique situation of being a consolidated city and county but the two not being conterminous (though the city boundary was expanded during consolidation). So the article is partially correct (including the staring). I'll remove the incorrect clause stating the areas are equal. I'm not sure what you mean about some counties being smaller than others. --skew-t (talk) 03:04, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Jacksonville is a consolidated city/county government dating back to the late 1960s...except for four communitities that opted out. The reference to some cities having rural or wilderness does NOT apply to jacksonville as it's expansion in the past 30 years has spilled over into neighboring counties. It is 784 square miles. And is the largest city area wise in the lower 48. Pete.

Yakutat

There is another ginormous Alaskan "city" that has somehow been ignored. Yakutat might actually be the biggest one, and definitely is if you include water area. http://www.yakutatak.govoffice2.com

Also a note on the introduction, the Municipality of Anchorage is not quite a county equivalent the way the 'City and Bourough of': Sitka, Juneau and Yakutat are. But it also isn't by any stretch all "city" either. Just Sayin' —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drew.Cason (talk • contribs) 19:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Why do you say Anchorage is not a county equivalent? The Municipality was created when the city was merged with the Greater Anchorage Borough. --skew-t (talk) 07:41, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the first poster in this section. Yakutat is 9,459 sq miles (7,650 of land) according to http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Yakutat_City_and_Borough,_Alaska and it's noted in that article as the largest city in the US and the 6th largest in the world. Why is it not in this list? https://www.reference.com/geography/largest-u-s-cities-square-miles-41108f103b6c502c agrees with this number.

Yakutat, Alaska says it is the biggest city.7,650.46 square miles of land area.[2] German.Knowitall (talk) 12:36, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

As unpopulated as Sitka and Juneau are, if consolidated cities and other Alaskan cities are on the list, it seems Yakutat is deserving of being listed as biggest. (talk) 15:32, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

The way I understand it, the reason the Census Bureau doesn't list Yakutat is because it incorporated as a borough, not a city-borough (despite the name). --Lasunncty (talk) 01:41, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

wrong

this article is wrong. New York City is supposed to be number one and L.A. is supposed to be number 2 and Chicago is number 3 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.228.11.125 (talk) 18:32, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

This article is a list of cities by area, not population. --skew-t (talk) 22:28, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protection

For some reason, random IPs keep changing all the data in this article. The areas and populations of some cities have been changed so many times I don't have any idea what I need to fix. The vandalism seems to be ongoing and cannot be fixed by blocking individual IPs because there are so many of them, so I think the best option would be to get the page semi-protected. Before I make an official protection request, who else supports semi-protection for this article? —Reelcheeper (talk) 22:38, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I do for sure. It seems the article has kinda been left to rot as before yours, the last comment was 2 years ago. It's really annoying because this article is the only one I've seen on the net at all to try and give a comprehensive list. Semi-Protection and serious re-working by a pro is, I think, the only thing that can save it. VanillaBear23 (talk) 12:16, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

It's a little late to reply, but a couple months ago I made the protection request and it was denied (not enough recent vandalism). I guess we'll just have to make corrective edits whenever possible. —Reelcheeper (talk) 20:22, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

2010 Census

Just a heads up, but one can use the new American FactFinder at the Census website to find the current area of cities as of the 2010 Census. Some of these such as Las Vegas and Charlotte, have added considerable amounts of new land. --Criticalthinker (talk) 05:42, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I’ve crunched the numbers from the new American FactFinder and have a spreadsheet with the 279 largest municipalities (all those greater than 50 square miles - about the same number presented in the List of United States cities by population article) - it’s just going to take a while to update them all. Yes, Las Vegas has grown by 20% and Charlotte by 23% - but not as much as Buckeye, Arizona - which is 157% larger than in 2000. Trorov (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:04, 21 April 2011 (UTC).

Overland Park, Kansas

Why is it not on the list? Kansan (talk) 22:06, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Duplicates

Columbia, SC and Ellsworth, ME are included twice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thelauges (talk • contribs) 08:23, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Inconsistant methodology

The methodology of this list is completely inconsistent in the case of consolidated city-counties. In some cases (New York City, Webster County Unified Government) we use the area of the entire city/county including separately incorporated municipalities. In other cases (Louisville, Nashville) we are excluding the area of separately incorporated municipalities. Thus we aren't comparing apples to apples. Kaldari (talk) 19:58, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Tagging as outdated and needing new references.

I've tagged this article because it lists only two sources at the bottom on the page. One is an outdated list from the 2000 census, and the other is from a third-party website that seems to be using criteria unrelated to this list. And more to the point, the current list doesn't reflect the data shown in either of the sources. I'll try to find a list from the 2010 census, but until reliable data is referenced (and the list updated to reflect it), I would consider this list unreliable. -Jhortman (talk) 20:49, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

major cities with large population and small area should be included

Um... as largest cities in area in their states, I can see why Ellsworth, ME and Plymouth, MA are in this list. But where are the major cities like Boston, MA and Portland, ME? It seems like small-area major cities should be in this list.

Arghman (talk) 02:40, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

update

I found some data files on the Census Bureau's website to be able to update this article. I first used 2010 data since it included an actual population count. But then I decided that it would be better to use the most recent information (2015) even though the population is only an estimate. (They have area data for 2016, but no population estimates yet.)

One little note about something I noticed in the 2015 data files: The only instance where the area table didn't match up with the population table is with Louisville, KY. In the area table, they separated Louisville from Jefferson County (balance), whereas in the population table they were combined. So for this article, I combined the two areas.

--Lasunncty (talk) 11:17, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I see that someone has reverted back to the 2010 data due to concerns about Tribune, Kansas. The way I understand it, that city merged with surrounding Greeley County, so it would be considered a consolidated city-county like the others on this list. Is that not correct? --Lasunncty (talk) 09:58, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Boston?

According to sources (most common one Google), Boston has a size of 89.63 mi², but did not make the list. I say the list should be revamped with Boston being added in. 74.108.224.146 (talk) 15:27, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

It's because this list is ranked by land area. Boston only has 48.42 mi² of land. --Lasunncty (talk) 07:42, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

San Francisco is MIA

OK, San Fran is mentioned in the lede but is not in the list -- even went back a couple years, not found. If like Boston it is excluded, could there be a footnote / explanation about these large small excluded cities? GeeBee60 (talk) 07:56, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

The mention in the lede is the explanation. The land area of San Francisco and Boston are both less than 50 sq mi, so they don't make the cut. --Lasunncty (talk) 04:47, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Out of Date

This article is well out of date. Its based on the 2010 census, but that was 10 freaking years ago. For example, according to the Census Bureau's website, Houston is now larger than Oklahoma City and the largest city in the U.S. that is not a consolidated city-county. See Here: https://data.census.gov/cedsci/profile?q=Houston%20city,%20Texas&g=1600000US4835000&table=DP05&tid=ACSDP1Y2018.DP05. We should probably use the Census Bureau's website for these numbers and change any incorrect ones.Rogue Commander (talk) 02:09, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I tried updating it a few years ago but got reverted. --Lasunncty (talk) 02:58, 10 January 2020 (UTC)