simplemaplab

Studies

Original data-driven geographic research from SimpleMapLab. Each study is built on public-domain datasets (Census, USGS, OpenStreetMap, NOAA), comes with a downloadable JSON or CSV under a CC-BY 4.0 licence, and links into the SimpleMapLab tools that produced the underlying calculations. Reuse and citation welcome.

Opheim, MT is the most isolated town in the lower 48 — 138 miles from any 10,000+ city
The Loneliest Towns in America

Every populated place in the US ranked by distance to the nearest city of 10,000+ residents. Montana's Hi-Line dominates the lower-48 top five; Alaska's Aleutian villages anchor the all-50 ranking. Every state's loneliest town gets its own page.

13 May 2026·50 states · 21K candidate towns · 5.5K anchor cities · CC-BY 4.0
Only 51.8% of Americans live within 100 miles of their state capital
The 100-Mile Radius Around Every US State Capital

A 50-state ranking of how much of each state’s population sits within a 100-mile geodesic radius of its capital. Florida’s capital reaches under 4% of Floridians; Alaska’s reaches under 7%. Four small Northeastern states are fully enclosed by their capital’s circle.

13 May 2026·50 states · 41,554 ZIPs · per-state pages · CC-BY 4.0

More studies are in development. Topics under research: population centroid drift vs. state capital location, the geographic accuracy of US state symmetry (true size at the equator), and a tour of the antipodes of every US capital. Get in touch via contact to hear when each one ships.