simplemaplab

Indiana's Most Remote Town Is Dugger — Just 27 Miles From Washington

By Marko Visic·Published 13 May 2026·Rank #42 of 50 states·↑ All 50 states

Dugger, IN — population 1,333, Sullivan County — is the most isolated inhabited place in Indiana. The nearest city of 10,000+ residents is Washington, IN, sitting 27 straight-line miles away. Indiana has 528 towns under 10,000 residents; Dugger is the most isolated among them.

Map: Dugger, IN (Indiana'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, Washington, sits on its edge 27 miles away.The brick-red dot marks Dugger, the most isolated inhabited place in Indiana. 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. Robinson, IL27 MITerre Haute, IN28 MISpencer, IN30 MIVincennes, IN32 MIWashington, INDuggerINDIANA 27 MIsimplemaplab.com / studies / most-remote-places
Dugger (red dot) and the nearest 10,000+ city, Washington, IN (green dot), separated by 27 straight-line miles.
27 mi
straight-line distance from Dugger to Washington, IN
1,333
year-round residents of Dugger (Census 2020)
11 mi
average distance to nearest anchor across Indiana's 528 small towns
#42
of 50 states ranked by their loneliest town's isolation
Open a radius around Dugger → /tools/map-radius-tool · Dugger, IN · 50 mi
The link opens the SimpleMapLab Map Radius Tool with a 50-mile circle drawn around Dugger. Try expanding the radius to see how far you have to look before encountering any 10,000+ city — the answer is roughly 27 miles in the direction of Washington.

Why this happened

Dugger, IN is Indiana's most remote inhabited place — but "remote" is relative here: just 27 miles from Washington. Indiana is among the more densely populated US states; the average small-town resident lives 11 miles from a qualifying anchor. Dugger's isolation is real to its 1,333 residents, even if the numbers are modest compared to Montana or Nevada.

Indiana's 5 most isolated towns

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

#TownPop.Distance to nearest 10K+Nearest city
1Dugger1,33327 miWashington, IN
2Earl Park76727 miRensselaer, IN
3Linton8,91026 miWashington, IN
4Midland11824 miSpencer, IN
5Ambia23924 miDanville, IL

How Indiana compares

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

#41 Kentucky
Baxter · 29 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#43 South Carolina
Hampton · 25 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#44 Ohio
Lewisville · 25 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#40 Tennessee
Linden · 31 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#45 Maryland
Tylerton · 24 mi to the nearest 10K+ city

Draw your own radius

Open a 50-mile circle around Dugger →

Try the 100-mile radius to see whether a major city falls inside — for Dugger, it doesn't, because the nearest qualifying city (Washington, IN) sits 27 miles away.

More about Indiana

See the full breakdown of Indiana's counties at /states/indiana/counties — population, area, median income, and county seat for every county, plus a labeled printable map. The companion study 100-mile radius around Indiana's capital measures the share of Indiana'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 Indiana 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 Indiana's loneliest. Full methodology on the hub page.

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