Largest city in the US

Largest state in the US

Did you know?

The US is a nation of immigrants, who are 14% of the total population. This is the highest % in the world.

The largest state in the USA is California. The latest Census Bureau estimate, from July 2011, recorded California’s official population as 37,691,912.

If California was a country, it would be the 34th most populous in the world, slightly larger than Algeria. It’s economy would be the eighth largest economy in the world, with roughly the same GDP as Italy, a European country of 61 million people. Interestingly, though, although California is the largest state in the United States of America, it isn’t the largest state in the continent of America - that honour goes to the Brazilian state of Sao Paolo.

You can check out the population of each state using the interactive US population map below - hover over a state and the population will appear below.

Largest city in the US

The largest city in the USA is, of course, New York. The city’s population in mid-2011 stood at n impressive 8,244,910, which makes NY larger than the second and third most populous cities in the US (Los Angeles and Chicago) combined.

For much of the early 20th century, New York was the largest city in the world. The stunning growth of cities elsewhere in the world means that, today, New York is only the world’s 19th largest city, sandwiched between Bangalore in India and Dongguan in China. It is, however, the world’s second largest city by GDP - it’s nominal GDP of $1.28 trillion puts it second only to the Japanese city of Tokyo.