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Meet Cheyenne Wells: The Colorado Town That Lives 106 Miles From the Nearest 10,000+ City

By Marko Visic·Published 13 May 2026·Rank #9 of 50 states·↑ All 50 states

Cheyenne Wells, CO — population 1,145, Cheyenne County — is the most isolated inhabited place in Colorado. The nearest city of 10,000+ residents is Garden City, KS, sitting 106 straight-line miles away — across the state line in KS. Colorado has 303 towns under 10,000 residents; Cheyenne Wells is the most isolated among them.

Map: Cheyenne Wells, CO (Colorado'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, Garden City, sits on its edge 106 miles away.The brick-red dot marks Cheyenne Wells, the most isolated inhabited place in Colorado. 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. Peyton, CO112 MIFort Morgan, CO116 MIElizabeth, CO121 MIFountain, CO121 MIGarden City, KSCheyenne WellsCOLORADO 106 MIsimplemaplab.com / studies / most-remote-places
Cheyenne Wells (red dot) and the nearest 10,000+ city, Garden City, KS (green dot), separated by 106 straight-line miles.
106 mi
straight-line distance from Cheyenne Wells to Garden City, KS
1,145
year-round residents of Cheyenne Wells (Census 2020)
31 mi
average distance to nearest anchor across Colorado's 303 small towns
#9
of 50 states ranked by their loneliest town's isolation
Open a radius around Cheyenne Wells → /tools/map-radius-tool · Cheyenne Wells, CO · 50 mi
The link opens the SimpleMapLab Map Radius Tool with a 50-mile circle drawn around Cheyenne Wells. Try expanding the radius to see how far you have to look before encountering any 10,000+ city — the answer is roughly 106 miles in the direction of Garden City.

Why this happened

Cheyenne Wells, CO is the most isolated inhabited place in Colorado: 106 miles to the nearest 10,000+ city (Garden City in KS). The town's 1,145 year-round residents live further from a qualifying city than the residents of any other Colorado town. The average Colorado small-town resident lives 31 miles from a qualifying anchor — Cheyenne Wells is the geographic outlier.

Colorado's 5 most isolated towns

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

#TownPop.Distance to nearest 10K+Nearest city
1Cheyenne Wells1,145106 miGarden City, KS
2Lamar9,045103 miGarden City, KS
3Burlington4,211101 miFort Morgan, CO
4Eads1,017100 miPeyton, CO
5Wiley76199 miPueblo, CO

How Colorado compares

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

#8 Kansas
Kanorado · 109 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#10 Minnesota
Grand Marais · 99 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#11 Idaho
Cascade · 96 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#7 South Dakota
Tuthill · 111 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#6 Texas
Presidio · 119 mi to the nearest 10K+ city

Draw your own radius

Open a 50-mile circle around Cheyenne Wells →

Try the 100-mile radius to see whether a major city falls inside — for Cheyenne Wells, it doesn't, because the nearest qualifying city (Garden City, KS) sits 106 miles away.

More about Colorado

See the full breakdown of Colorado's counties at /states/colorado/counties — population, area, median income, and county seat for every county, plus a labeled printable map. The companion study 100-mile radius around Colorado's capital measures the share of Colorado's population that lives within day-trip distance of the capitol — an inverse framing of the isolation question this page poses.

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 Colorado 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 Colorado's loneliest. Full methodology on the hub page.

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