Talk:List of United States cities by population density

Page move
, you've created a nice article here, but I believe it's misnamed. Your first list is incorporated places, and your second is Census designated places. Neither of these is a city list. May I therefore suggest this page be moved to Urban density in the United States, Density in the United States, or Most densely populated parts of the United States?--Loodog (talk) 21:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The main reason I chose this article title is because the style and content of the list is similar to List of United States cities by population. I did think this might not be the best name though. "Cities" used in the title is just meant as a generic placename for a populated place, it's not meant to denote any legal standing. I would guess that people that live in some of the more populated CDPs generically call the place a "city". An alternate name could be something like List of United States places by population density or List of the most densely populated places in the United States. The U.S. cities by population is also of "incorporated places", but that might not matter as much to that article as probably almost all the places listed are legally "cities" too. Changing "city" to "place" might be the way to go since "place" is the term the U.S. Census Bureau uses, which is the reference this article is based on. LonelyMarble (talk) 21:43, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Many CDP's - the ones in this list, in particular - are synonymous with "unincorporated city". Changing the name of this list to replace "cities" with "place" may be more technically correct but I see no reason that the term "city" must be exclusive to incorporated cities only.  A similar issue could be brought up for this list's spiritual parent, in that List of United States cities by population includes a few incorporated entities that are not techncially cities and thus the more technically correct name would be the less intuitive List of United States incorporated places by population.  I realize I am now babbling and repeating a lot of information you already stated above, but I think it boils down to an issue of technicality vs. usability and the existing name is more intuitive and thus more useful.  The bolded text in the lead paragraph clears up any potential technical confusion.  I think it's fine as it is. Shereth 14:12, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think "city" is a fine generic term for a populated place. I think it really just depends what state you are from. If you are from the northeastern part of the country, "city" may be a little more ambiguous since those states tend have stronger distinctions between "cities", "towns" and whatever else. But a lot of states simply call all incorporated places a "city". For example, #22 on this list, Poplar Hills, Kentucky, is officially called a "city" even though it's population is only 396 over 0.02 sq mi. Then on the other end you have a place like Hempstead (village), New York that has a population of 50,000+ but is offically a "village". Therefore, while "place" is more technically correct as you said, I think "city" for a generic populated place is possibly more common and well understood, which would be inline with naming conventions. LonelyMarble (talk) 17:30, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Exactly :) Shereth 17:37, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The land area for Chelsea, MA is incorrect. It should be 1.8 sq mi. There is .3 sq mi of water that shouldn't be used in the table or in the calculation of density. Other cities listed make this distinction correctly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brufleth (talk • contribs) 19:59, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Time for the 2010 Census to be used
Since clearly no one wants to go through the effort all at once, it must be done one at a time. I'll start with North Bay Village. Daniel Christensen (talk) 12:41, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

edited: a revision of the table using 2010 data appeared here, see here to view

Do you want other people to work on this as well? Sfoske70 (talk) 22:24, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Why are the External links all for 2000 Census, none for 2010 Census? I changed text and one link to 2010 for tables indicating 2010 data were used. Puerto Rico is still showing 2000 data and rankings. --Prairieplant (talk) 02:22, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

How to verify? edit?
I was surprised top find "Poplar Hills, Kentucky" listed here. It is a tiny sixth-class city in metropolitan Louisville. From an aerial view, it looks like it consists of a single complex of two-story apartment buildings, hardly out of the ordinary, but ranking 18th on the list of incorporated places.

In trying to verify the figures given, I checked Poplar Hills, Kentucky, where the area is listed as "0.0 sq mi (0.1 km2)." Note that 0.1 km2 is about 0.04 square mile, twice the 0.02 sq.mi. given in this article.

If I correct the area to 0.04, the density will be cut in half and it should drop out of the table. But it looks like the table (with its rank numbers) is hard-coded. I would apparently have to manually delete the row, then renumber the following rows ... and then the table would be only 124 rows long. So I am at a loss as to how to proceed.

Of course, the 0.1 km2 figure sounds suspicious too, so I'd like to verify that against the source the article has used. But at the moment, the census.gov site is down! :) Frappyjohn (talk) 03:26, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Verifying data, Cambridge Massachusetts
I came across this page when tracking back the article for Cambridge, MA which says "The population density was 16,422.08 people per square mile (6,341.98/km²), making Cambridge the fifth most densely populated city in the US[46] "

I wanted to make things at least internally consistent, but the data cited here for Cambridge appear to be wrong.

Cambridge, according to the Census 2010 Quickfacts has a population of 105,201 and a density of 16,470.2

I do not want to just jump in and change things, hence, my comment here.

City of Racine, WI
The City of Racine Wi is omitted from this list for some reason, Population 77,571 area8CJROUSE8 (talk) 20:29, 28 February 2018 (UTC) of 3.48 square miles. density of 22,291 per square mile. this would put it quite high on the list, yet it is not even listed as Wisconsin's top city.8CJROUSE8 (talk) 20:28, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * , according to the article Racine, Wisconsin, the city has an area of 15.66 square miles, giving it a density of 5,094.3 inhabitants per square mile. Rublov (talk) 01:26, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

The table is definitely wrong
Tennessee and South Carolina are definitely NOT some of the least densely populated states. You have Wyoming as more dense than Tennessee. There is something wrong there and I don't have the time to fix it, but maybe someone else does. 2600:8803:B200:D700:E848:9370:A1E1:95BD (talk) 02:33, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The table is ranked by densest place within the state, not the state as a whole. The whole state of Wyoming is definitely not denser than the whole state of Tennessee, but the densest town in Wyoming is above the densest town in Tennessee, which is what the table shows. Sbb618 (talk) 09:29, 26 January 2024 (UTC)