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In a Crowded State, Apalachicola Is the Loneliest Place: Florida's Most Remote Town

By SimpleMapLab·Published 13 May 2026·Rank #31 of 50 states·↑ All 50 states

Apalachicola, FL — population 3,792, Franklin County — is the most isolated inhabited place in Florida. The nearest city of 10,000+ residents is Panama City, FL, sitting 46 straight-line miles away. Florida has 213 towns under 10,000 residents; Apalachicola is the most isolated among them.

Map: Apalachicola, FL (Florida'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, Panama City, sits on its edge 46 miles away.The brick-red dot marks Apalachicola, the most isolated inhabited place in Florida. 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. Lynn Haven, FL49 MICrawfordville, FL55 MIPanama City Beach, FL58 MIQuincy, FL61 MIPanama City, FLApalachicolaFLORIDA 46 MIsimplemaplab.com / studies / most-remote-places
Apalachicola (red dot) and the nearest 10,000+ city, Panama City, FL (green dot), separated by 46 straight-line miles.
46 mi
straight-line distance from Apalachicola to Panama City, FL
3,792
year-round residents of Apalachicola (Census 2020)
11 mi
average distance to nearest anchor across Florida's 213 small towns
#31
of 50 states ranked by their loneliest town's isolation
Open a radius around Apalachicola → /tools/map-radius-tool · Apalachicola, FL · 50 mi
The link opens the SimpleMapLab Map Radius Tool with a 50-mile circle drawn around Apalachicola. Try expanding the radius to see how far you have to look before encountering any 10,000+ city — the answer is roughly 46 miles in the direction of Panama City.

Why this happened

Apalachicola, FL is Florida's most remote inhabited place — but "remote" is relative here: just 46 miles from Panama City. Florida is among the more densely populated US states; the average small-town resident lives 11 miles from a qualifying anchor. Apalachicola's isolation is real to its 3,792 residents, even if the numbers are modest compared to Montana or Nevada.

Florida's 5 most isolated towns

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

#TownPop.Distance to nearest 10K+Nearest city
1Apalachicola3,79246 miPanama City, FL
2Eastpoint4,40943 miCrawfordville, FL
3Port Saint Joe7,51030 miPanama City, FL
4Ochopee16930 miImmokalee, FL
5Wewahitchka8,83829 miPanama City, FL

How Florida compares

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

#32 West Virginia
Cowen · 46 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#30 Wisconsin
Park Falls · 49 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#29 Hawaii
Naalehu · 49 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#33 Oklahoma
Boise City · 45 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#28 New York
Blue Mountain Lake · 51 mi to the nearest 10K+ city

Draw your own radius

Open a 50-mile circle around Apalachicola →

Try the 100-mile radius to see whether a major city falls inside — for Apalachicola, it doesn't, because the nearest qualifying city (Panama City, FL) sits 46 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 Florida 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 Florida's loneliest. Full methodology on the hub page.

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