Methodology · who is included
Incorporated places, consolidated cities, and DC.
This ranking covers included city/place records for which the Census Bureau publishes annual population estimates under the Population Estimates Program: standard incorporated places, the eight consolidated city-county governments (including Indianapolis, Nashville, Louisville, and others), Washington DC, and documented special cases. It does not include most Census-designated places (CDPs), minor civil divisions / townships, unincorporated county areas, or county-balance geographies.
Ranks use standard competition ranking ("1224"): tied cities share the lower rank number and the next rank is skipped. The 5-year change columns show the within-Vintage-2025 movement from the April 2020 census base to the July 2025 estimate. This ranking is not a total-U.S.-population denominator, and this site does not publish a single 2010→2025 growth figure because V2019 and V2025 use different methodologies and reference populations.