Find Cities in Radius
By Marko Visic · Updated Oct 7, 2026
Search US cities within any distance of an address, city, or coordinate. Cities are USPS postal-city names aggregated from ZIP codes. Sized markers, hover-for-detail, sortable results, population filter, and CSV export. Free, unlimited, no sign-up.
Find Cities in Radius
Search an address, use GPS, or click on the map to set center point
A city radius search returns every US city whose center falls within a chosen distance of a point. Cities are USPS postal-city names aggregated from ZIP codes, positioned at the geometric centroids of their ZCTAs. It is used for sales territories, event marketing, candidate sourcing, distribution planning, and route design.
Density tracks population. A 25 mi radius around a major metro often returns 80–250 cities; the same radius in rural states may return 15–40. The "Min population" filter (1K, 5K, 25K, 100K, 500K) lets you focus on cities of a relevant size for your use case.
Coordinates are the geometric centroids of the Census ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) assigned to each city. Distances use the Haversine great-circle formula. Population is from the US Census American Community Survey via SimpleMaps.
Free, no sign-up. Each search runs on our server.
What is a city radius search?
A city radius search returns every US city whose center falls within a chosen distance — the "radius" — of a point on the map. The point can be an address, a ZIP code, a landmark, your current GPS location, or another city. Cities here are USPS postal-city names aggregated from ZIP codes, positioned at the geometric centroids of their ZCTAs. The result is the list of cities you can reach, target, or analyze inside that circle.
City radius searches power a wide range of work that ZIP-code searches can't:(1) sales territory design where reps need a list of named places to visit, (2) event marketing where you want to know which towns to invite,(3) candidate sourcing where you need a hiring radius around an office, and (4) distribution and routing where city names map cleanly onto road signs and dispatch software. ZIPs are postal routing codes — cities are the units humans actually navigate.
This tool answers four common questions: (1) Which cities are inside my area? (2) How many people live across them? (3) Which counties do they cover? (4) Can I get a clean list to import elsewhere? Each search runs on our server and returns a clean, exportable list — free, no sign-up, no API key.
What counts as a "city"?
This tool groups ZIP codes by their USPS postal-city name within each state, giving about 27,722 cities. Each city's population is the sum of its ZIP populations, and its coordinate is the geometric centroid of its ZCTAs. Because postal cities follow the names USPS assigns to ZIP codes, they line up closely with — but are not identical to — the Census Bureau's incorporated places and Census-designated places.
| Type | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Incorporated city | Has its own legal government and charter | Los Angeles, CA |
| Town / borough | Smaller incorporated unit, varies by state | Princeton, NJ |
| Village | Smallest incorporated unit in many states | Mamaroneck, NY |
| Census-designated place (CDP) | Populated area with no own government | Silver Spring, MD |
| Township | Subdivision of a county (NE, Midwest) | Bloomfield Township, MI |
All five types appear in the search results when they have at least one Census-tracked resident and a postal name. If you want only the larger places, use the Min population filter (1K, 5K, 25K, 100K, 500K) to hide micro-villages.
How to use this tool
Common search examples
The numbers below come from real searches in this tool with no minimum population filter — useful as a sanity check for what to expect when you center on a major metro area.
| Center | State | Radius | Cities found | Population |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York | NY | 10 mi | 62 | 8.3M |
| Los Angeles | CA | 25 mi | 111 | 9.0M |
| Chicago | IL | 25 mi | 120 | 5.9M |
| Dallas–Fort Worth | TX | 25 mi | 41 | 4.9M |
| Houston | TX | 25 mi | 25 | 5.8M |
| Phoenix | AZ | 25 mi | 24 | 4.3M |
| Atlanta | GA | 25 mi | 39 | 4.0M |
| Boston | MA | 25 mi | 149 | 3.9M |
| San Francisco | CA | 25 mi | 62 | 3.4M |
| Seattle | WA | 25 mi | 44 | 3.2M |
| Denver | CO | 25 mi | 30 | 3.0M |
| Miami | FL | 25 mi | 12 | 3.3M |
Typical city density by region type
City density tracks population density. A 25-mile radius in midtown Manhattan returns roughly 25× as many cities as the same radius in western Nebraska. Use this table to set realistic expectations and pick a radius that returns a useful number of results for your area.
| Region type | Example | 5 mi | 25 mi | 50 mi |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dense urban | Manhattan, NYC | 40–80 | 300–500 | 900–1,400 |
| Major metro | Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas | 15–40 | 120–250 | 300–550 |
| Mid-size city | Boise, Tulsa, Knoxville | 5–15 | 40–90 | 90–180 |
| Small town | Burlington VT, Bend OR | 2–6 | 15–35 | 40–90 |
| Rural / frontier | Western Nebraska, NE Nevada | 0–2 | 4–12 | 12–30 |
Who uses city radius search
1. Sales territory design
Sales managers carve up the country into territories assigned to individual reps. City lists are easier to assign and explain than ZIP lists — "you cover everything within 50 mi of Indianapolis" reads cleanly to a new hire and maps onto a CRM's city field.
2. Event marketing and conferences
Event planners use city radii to build invite lists, predict travel demand, and estimate attendance. A 100-mile radius around a venue captures the realistic day-trip and short-drive market.
3. Talent sourcing and recruiting
Recruiters define a hiring radius around an office and source candidates from the cities inside it. The population total helps estimate the addressable talent pool.
4. Distribution and route planning
Distributors and field service businesses need a list of named towns to plan weekly visits, stocking runs, and service routes. The CSV imports into routing software like Routific, OptimoRoute, or Salesforce Maps.
5. Retail site selection
Retailers picking new store locations pull a 25–50 mi city list around each candidate site to model trade-area population and identify cannibalization risk from existing locations.
6. Political campaigns and door-knocking
Local candidates and ballot-measure campaigns plan canvasses by city. A radius around a campaign HQ surfaces the priority cities for organizing, signage, and mailers.
7. Real estate investment analysis
Investors comparing markets pull city lists around each candidate metro to benchmark population, growth, and competitive supply. The tool gives a quick apples-to-apples view across multiple metros.
8. Data science and feature engineering
Data teams use city radius lookups to build location features — "count of nearby cities by population", "nearest city of size X", and so on — for churn models, fraud detection, and recommendation systems.
How the distance calculation works
The tool uses the Haversine formula to compute great-circle distance between the center point and each city centroid — the shortest path between two points on the surface of a sphere.
a = sin²(Δφ/2) + cos(φ₁) · cos(φ₂) · sin²(Δλ/2) c = 2 · atan2(√a, √(1−a)) d = R · c // R = 3959 mi (Earth radius)
Each city is represented by a single coordinate derived from the geometric centroid of the Census ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) assigned to that city in a given state — the geometric center of the ZCTA polygon, not a population-weighted point. Inclusion therefore answers "is the geometric center of this city inside my radius?" For cities with awkward boundaries (long thin cities, cities with annexed industrial zones, cities around bays or rivers) the centroid can sit some distance from where most residents live.
Inclusion is binary. A city whose centroid is 50.1 mi from your point is excluded from a 50 mi radius even if part of its territory falls inside. Tighten or loosen the radius slightly if you need edge cases captured.
The visible circle on the map is rendered as a true geodesic polygon (Turf.js, 80 vertices), so it respects Earth's curvature. At small radii the difference is invisible. At 200+ miles or near the poles, a flat-projection circle would visibly distort — the geodesic version does not.
Limitations & accuracy notes
We're upfront about what this tool does and doesn't do. Knowing the limitations helps you avoid the common mistakes of city-based geographic analysis.
- Cities are points, not polygons. Each city is a single centroid. A large city like Houston extends 25+ miles end-to-end, but its centroid is one point. A nearby suburb may be closer to your search center than the Houston centroid even if it's technically "inside" Houston.
- City names are not unique. Many US places share a name, so include the state. We key on city + state, so duplicates are kept distinct, but be careful when joining city-only data without state context.
- Some places overlap. A CDP can sit inside an incorporated city's boundary, or two CDPs can overlap. Both will appear in results.
- Population is annual, not real-time. Census ACS estimates lag by 1–3 years. Use for planning and analysis, not for legal reporting.
- Straight-line distance, not driving distance. A city 30 mi away as the crow flies might be a 90-minute drive in mountains or city traffic. Use a drive-time tool for routing.
- Centroid-based inclusion misses edges. A large rural city can extend many miles past its centroid. If you need every address within a precise distance, use a drive-time isochrone tool.
Glossary
- Incorporated city
- A city with its own legal government, charter, and boundaries — e.g., Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta. Often distinct from the broader metro area.
- Census-designated place (CDP)
- A populated area without its own municipal government that the Census Bureau tracks for statistical purposes — e.g., Silver Spring MD, The Villages FL. Counted as a "city" in this tool.
- Town / township
- A unit of local government in some states (especially the Northeast and Midwest). May or may not function as a city. Treated as cities in this tool when they have a postal name and population.
- Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA / CBSA)
- A region with at least one urban core of 50,000+ residents, plus economically tied surrounding counties. Cities in this tool report their county and state; the CSV does not include an MSA column.
- Geometric centroid
- The geometric center of a ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) polygon — the point coordinate SimpleMaps assigns to each ZIP. City coordinates in this tool are derived from the geometric centroids of the ZCTAs assigned to each city name.
- Haversine distance
- Great-circle distance between two points on a sphere. Used for accurate distance over the curved surface of Earth.
- ZCTA
- ZIP Code Tabulation Area — Census polygons used to aggregate population and other data into ZIP-like areas. City coordinates here are derived by aggregating ZCTAs assigned to each city name.
- Drive time vs straight line
- This tool uses straight-line ("as the crow flies") distance. Drive time can be 1.5–3× longer because of road networks, traffic, and terrain.
Related tools and resources
For mailing lists or postal targeting, use Find ZIP Codes in Radius — same map, same drag-to-resize handle, but it returns ZIP codes with visual ZCTA polygons instead of city points.
If you need the total population within a radius (not broken down by city), the Population Within Radius tool calculates aggregated demographics for any circular area.
For drawing radius circles on a worldwide map without city data attached, use the Map Radius Tool — it works internationally and supports multiple circles.
Not sure what city you're currently in? The What City Am I In? tool uses GPS or address lookup to identify your city instantly.
To measure the straight-line distance between two specific cities, use the Distance Between Cities calculator — it includes population-sorted autocomplete and estimated drive times.
Browsing by state? Each state has a county directory:
Frequently asked questions
City coordinates, population, and county aggregated from the SimpleMaps US ZIP Codes Database (US Census ACS + ZCTA data), grouped by USPS postal city + state using the geometric centroids of the assigned ZCTAs, with populations summed from the underlying ZIP codes. About 27,722 cities. Address autocomplete uses the Photon geocoder with OpenStreetMap data. Reverse geocoding uses Nominatim. Distances use the Haversine great-circle formula. Map rendering uses MapLibre GL JS with OpenFreeMap tiles and Turf.js for the geodesic radius polygon.
ZIP code data: SimpleMaps US Zip Codes Database v1.95.1 (8 Jul 2026), free version under CC BY 4.0. Population: American Community Survey 2024 5-year estimates. Coordinates are the geometric centroids of Census ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (2010 ZCTA boundaries).