simplemaplab

Nebraska's Most Remote Inhabited Place: Cody, 120 Miles From North Platte

By SimpleMapLab·Published 13 May 2026·Rank #5 of 50 states·↑ All 50 states

Cody, NE — population 201, Cherry County — is the most isolated inhabited place in Nebraska. The nearest city of 10,000+ residents is North Platte, NE, sitting 120 straight-line miles away. Nebraska has 486 towns under 10,000 residents; Cody is the most isolated among them.

Map: Cody, NE (Nebraska'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, North Platte, sits on its edge 120 miles away.The brick-red dot marks Cody, the most isolated inhabited place in Nebraska. 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. Pierre, SD127 MIBox Elder, SD128 MIScottsbluff, NE129 MIRapid City, SD129 MINorth Platte, NECodyNEBRASKA 120 MIsimplemaplab.com / studies / most-remote-places
Cody (red dot) and the nearest 10,000+ city, North Platte, NE (green dot), separated by 120 straight-line miles.
120 mi
straight-line distance from Cody to North Platte, NE
201
year-round residents of Cody (Census 2020)
33 mi
average distance to nearest anchor across Nebraska's 486 small towns
#5
of 50 states ranked by their loneliest town's isolation
Open a radius around Cody → /tools/map-radius-tool · Cody, NE · 50 mi
The link opens the SimpleMapLab Map Radius Tool with a 50-mile circle drawn around Cody. Try expanding the radius to see how far you have to look before encountering any 10,000+ city — the answer is roughly 120 miles in the direction of North Platte.

Why this happened

Cody, Nebraska — population just 201 — is the loneliest town in the state, 120 miles from North Platte (the nearest 10,000+ city). Cody sits in the Sand Hills, the vast grass-covered dunes of north-central Nebraska that hold less than 1% of the state's population across roughly 20% of its area.

Nebraska's geography is bimodal: the eastern third (Omaha, Lincoln, Grand Island corridor) is densely settled; the western two-thirds — the Sand Hills, the Panhandle — is some of the most sparsely populated land in the lower 48. The state's loneliest towns sit in this western half, separated from each other by hours of empty grassland.

Nebraska's 5 most isolated towns

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

#TownPop.Distance to nearest 10K+Nearest city
1Cody201120 miNorth Platte, NE
2Kilgore221115 miPierre, SD
3Merriman429112 miScottsbluff, NE
4Sparks54112 miPierre, SD
5Crookston315110 miPierre, SD

How Nebraska compares

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

#4 Oregon
Frenchglen · 120 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#6 Texas
Presidio · 119 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#3 Nevada
Tonopah · 124 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#7 South Dakota
Tuthill · 111 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#8 Kansas
Kanorado · 109 mi to the nearest 10K+ city

Draw your own radius

Open a 50-mile circle around Cody →

Try the 100-mile radius to see whether a major city falls inside — for Cody, it doesn't, because the nearest qualifying city (North Platte, NE) sits 120 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 Nebraska 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 Nebraska's loneliest. Full methodology on the hub page.

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