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In a Crowded State, Coudersport Is the Loneliest Place: Pennsylvania's Most Remote Town

By Marko Visic·Published 13 May 2026·Rank #39 of 50 states·↑ All 50 states

Coudersport, PA — population 5,600, Potter County — is the most isolated inhabited place in Pennsylvania. The nearest city of 10,000+ residents is Olean, NY, sitting 31 straight-line miles away — across the state line in NY. Pennsylvania has 1,302 towns under 10,000 residents; Coudersport is the most isolated among them.

Map: Coudersport, PA (Pennsylvania'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, Olean, sits on its edge 31 miles away.The brick-red dot marks Coudersport, the most isolated inhabited place in Pennsylvania. 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. Wellsboro, PA33 MISaint Marys, PA37 MIHornell, NY42 MILock Haven, PA42 MIOlean, NYCoudersportPENNSYLVANIA 31 MIsimplemaplab.com / studies / most-remote-places
Coudersport (red dot) and the nearest 10,000+ city, Olean, NY (green dot), separated by 31 straight-line miles.
31 mi
straight-line distance from Coudersport to Olean, NY
5,600
year-round residents of Coudersport (Census 2020)
9 mi
average distance to nearest anchor across Pennsylvania's 1,302 small towns
#39
of 50 states ranked by their loneliest town's isolation
Open a radius around Coudersport → /tools/map-radius-tool · Coudersport, PA · 50 mi
The link opens the SimpleMapLab Map Radius Tool with a 50-mile circle drawn around Coudersport. Try expanding the radius to see how far you have to look before encountering any 10,000+ city — the answer is roughly 31 miles in the direction of Olean.

Why this happened

Coudersport, PA is Pennsylvania's most remote inhabited place — but "remote" is relative here: just 31 miles from Olean in NY. Pennsylvania is among the more densely populated US states; the average small-town resident lives 9 miles from a qualifying anchor. Coudersport's isolation is real to its 5,600 residents, even if the numbers are modest compared to Montana or Nevada.

Pennsylvania's 5 most isolated towns

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

#TownPop.Distance to nearest 10K+Nearest city
1Coudersport5,60031 miOlean, NY
2Genesee1,55129 miHornell, NY
3Austin1,26128 miSaint Marys, PA
4Clarington28527 miDu Bois, PA
5New Albany2,08927 miSayre, PA

How Pennsylvania compares

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

#38 Illinois
Milford · 33 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#40 Tennessee
Linden · 31 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#37 Georgia
Bluffton · 35 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#41 Kentucky
Baxter · 29 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#42 Indiana
Dugger · 27 mi to the nearest 10K+ city

Draw your own radius

Open a 50-mile circle around Coudersport →

Try the 100-mile radius to see whether a major city falls inside — for Coudersport, it doesn't, because the nearest qualifying city (Olean, NY) sits 31 miles away.

More about Pennsylvania

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

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