simplemaplab

The Loneliest Town in Alabama: Thomasville, 53 Miles From the Nearest City

By SimpleMapLab·Published 13 May 2026·Rank #26 of 50 states·↑ All 50 states

Thomasville, AL — population 5,835, Clarke County — is the most isolated inhabited place in Alabama. The nearest city of 10,000+ residents is Waynesboro, MS, sitting 53 straight-line miles away — across the state line in MS. Alabama has 406 towns under 10,000 residents; Thomasville is the most isolated among them.

Map: Thomasville, AL (Alabama's loneliest inhabited place) and its 5 nearest cities of 10,000+ residents. The brick-red ring shows the empty zone in which no qualifying city exists; the nearest, Waynesboro, sits on its edge 53 miles away.The brick-red dot marks Thomasville, the most isolated inhabited place in Alabama. Up to 5 green dots mark the nearest qualifying cities (population 10,000+), each labelled with name and straight-line distance. The brick-red dashed circle traces the empty zone — radius equal to the distance to the very nearest qualifying city. Atmore, AL58 MIMeridian, MS59 MISelma, AL60 MIBrewton, AL71 MIWaynesboro, MSThomasvilleALABAMA 53 MIsimplemaplab.com / studies / most-remote-places
Thomasville (red dot) and the nearest 10,000+ city, Waynesboro, MS (green dot), separated by 53 straight-line miles.
53 mi
straight-line distance from Thomasville to Waynesboro, MS
5,835
year-round residents of Thomasville (Census 2020)
17 mi
average distance to nearest anchor across Alabama's 406 small towns
#26
of 50 states ranked by their loneliest town's isolation
Open a radius around Thomasville → /tools/map-radius-tool · Thomasville, AL · 50 mi
The link opens the SimpleMapLab Map Radius Tool with a 50-mile circle drawn around Thomasville. Try expanding the radius to see how far you have to look before encountering any 10,000+ city — the answer is roughly 53 miles in the direction of Waynesboro.

Why this happened

Alabama's loneliest inhabited place is Thomasville — 53 miles from Waynesboro in MS. Thomasville's 5,835 residents are the most-removed-from-civilization population in the state, though the gap is not as dramatic as in the Mountain West or Great Plains states. The average Alabama small-town resident lives 17 miles from a qualifying anchor.

Alabama's 5 most isolated towns

The top 5 most-isolated inhabited places in Alabama, sorted by distance to the nearest 10,000+ city.

#TownPop.Distance to nearest 10K+Nearest city
1Thomasville5,83553 miWaynesboro, MS
2Dixons Mills1,55952 miSelma, AL
3Sweet Water1,85049 miMeridian, MS
4Coy58149 miSelma, AL
5Linden2,52247 miSelma, AL

How Alabama compares

The states ranked closest to Alabama on this metric. Click any for the dedicated breakdown.

#25 Iowa
Massena · 53 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#27 Missouri
Blythedale · 52 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#28 New York
Blue Mountain Lake · 51 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#24 North Carolina
Hatteras · 56 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#29 Hawaii
Naalehu · 49 mi to the nearest 10K+ city

Draw your own radius

Open a 50-mile circle around Thomasville →

Try the 100-mile radius to see whether a major city falls inside — for Thomasville, it doesn't, because the nearest qualifying city (Waynesboro, MS) sits 53 miles away.

Methodology (brief)

We aggregate the US Census ZCTA dataset by postal city, treating any (postal city, state) pair with ≥ 50 residents as a town. Anchor cities are places with ≥ 10,000 residents. For every Alabama town below the anchor threshold, we compute the straight-line distance to every anchor city in the US (cross-state distances count). The town with the largest minimum distance is Alabama's loneliest. Full methodology on the hub page.

Suggested citation: SimpleMapLab (2026). The Loneliest Towns in America: Alabama. Part of the Most Remote Inhabited Places study. Retrieved from https://www.simplemaplab.com/studies/most-remote-places/alabama. CC-BY 4.0.