simplemaplab

Mapping Mississippi's Loneliest Town: Scooba, 35 Miles to a City of 10,000+

By SimpleMapLab·Published 13 May 2026·Rank #36 of 50 states·↑ All 50 states

Scooba, MS — population 1,174, Kemper County — is the most isolated inhabited place in Mississippi. The nearest city of 10,000+ residents is Meridian, MS, sitting 35 straight-line miles away. Mississippi has 300 towns under 10,000 residents; Scooba is the most isolated among them.

Map: Scooba, MS (Mississippi'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, Meridian, sits on its edge 35 miles away.The brick-red dot marks Scooba, the most isolated inhabited place in Mississippi. 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. Louisville, MS37 MIPhiladelphia, MS39 MIColumbus, MS44 MIStarkville, MS47 MIMeridian, MSScoobaMISSISSIPPI 35 MIsimplemaplab.com / studies / most-remote-places
Scooba (red dot) and the nearest 10,000+ city, Meridian, MS (green dot), separated by 35 straight-line miles.
35 mi
straight-line distance from Scooba to Meridian, MS
1,174
year-round residents of Scooba (Census 2020)
16 mi
average distance to nearest anchor across Mississippi's 300 small towns
#36
of 50 states ranked by their loneliest town's isolation
Open a radius around Scooba → /tools/map-radius-tool · Scooba, MS · 50 mi
The link opens the SimpleMapLab Map Radius Tool with a 50-mile circle drawn around Scooba. Try expanding the radius to see how far you have to look before encountering any 10,000+ city — the answer is roughly 35 miles in the direction of Meridian.

Why this happened

Scooba, MS is Mississippi's most remote inhabited place — but "remote" is relative here: just 35 miles from Meridian. Mississippi is among the more densely populated US states; the average small-town resident lives 16 miles from a qualifying anchor. Scooba's isolation is real to its 1,174 residents, even if the numbers are modest compared to Montana or Nevada.

Mississippi's 5 most isolated towns

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

#TownPop.Distance to nearest 10K+Nearest city
1Scooba1,17435 miMeridian, MS
2Mayersville19633 miYazoo City, MS
3Centreville4,52430 miZachary, LA
4Eupora5,29029 miStarkville, MS
5Derma9629 miPontotoc, MS

How Mississippi compares

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

#35 Arkansas
De Witt · 41 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#37 Georgia
Bluffton · 35 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#38 Illinois
Milford · 33 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#34 Virginia
Quinby · 43 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#33 Oklahoma
Boise City · 45 mi to the nearest 10K+ city

Draw your own radius

Open a 50-mile circle around Scooba →

Try the 100-mile radius to see whether a major city falls inside — for Scooba, it doesn't, because the nearest qualifying city (Meridian, MS) sits 35 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 Mississippi 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 Mississippi's loneliest. Full methodology on the hub page.

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