In Maryland, Even the Loneliest Town (Tylerton) Sits 24 Miles From the Nearest 10,000+ City
Tylerton, MD — population 81, Somerset County — is the most isolated inhabited place in Maryland. The nearest city of 10,000+ residents is Princess Anne, MD, sitting 24 straight-line miles away. Maryland has 264 towns under 10,000 residents; Tylerton is the most isolated among them.
The link opens the SimpleMapLab Map Radius Tool with a 50-mile circle drawn around Tylerton. Try expanding the radius to see how far you have to look before encountering any 10,000+ city — the answer is roughly 24 miles in the direction of Princess Anne.
Why this happened
In a state as dense as Maryland, "loneliest town" is a relative title. Tylerton holds it at just 24 miles from Princess Anne — a comfortable half-hour drive in most of the country, but the longest drive between any Maryland town and a qualifying city. Tylerton's 81 residents are the closest thing the state has to small-town America.
Maryland's 5 most isolated towns
The top 5 most-isolated inhabited places in Maryland, sorted by distance to the nearest 10,000+ city.
| # | Town | Pop. | Distance to nearest 10K+ | Nearest city |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tylerton | 81 | 24 mi | Princess Anne, MD |
| 2 | Ewell | 264 | 23 mi | Princess Anne, MD |
| 3 | Stockton | 606 | 20 mi | Princess Anne, MD |
| 4 | Friendsville | 2,487 | 18 mi | Oakland, MD |
| 5 | Girdletree | 396 | 18 mi | Berlin, MD |
How Maryland compares
The states ranked closest to Maryland on this metric. Click any for the dedicated breakdown.
Draw your own radius
Open a 50-mile circle around Tylerton →
Try the 100-mile radius to see whether a major city falls inside — for Tylerton, it doesn't, because the nearest qualifying city (Princess Anne, MD) sits 24 miles away.
More about Maryland
See the full breakdown of Maryland's counties at /states/maryland/counties — population, area, median income, and county seat for every county, plus a labeled printable map. The companion study 100-mile radius around Maryland's capital measures the share of Maryland'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 Maryland 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 Maryland's loneliest. Full methodology on the hub page.
Suggested citation: SimpleMapLab (2026). The Loneliest Towns in America: Maryland. Part of the Most Remote Inhabited Places study. Retrieved from https://www.simplemaplab.com/studies/most-remote-places/maryland. CC-BY 4.0.