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What's the best-known city in America? ...and other stats from my U.S. cities game

I run a geography quiz game that challenges you to name as many cities¹ in the United States as you can. In this post, co-written with Sasha Trubetskoy, we've analyzed 49,468 plays of the quiz to answer questions like "How many cities can the average person name", "What are the best-known cities in America", and more.

The median player named 104 cities, while the top 10% of players named at least 377 cities. The city named by the most players was New York City, followed by Los Angeles. For its size, Montpelier, Vermont was the most surprisingly well-known city, while Sunrise Manor, Nevada, a suburb of Las Vegas, was the most surprisingly obscure. Concord, New Hampshire was the most forgotten state capital, and West Virginia was the most forgotten state.

Methodology

The analysis was based on a dataset of 49,468 plays of my U.S. cities quiz. The dataset comprised every play of the quiz from the quiz's publication in October 2019 through October 31, 2020, excluding plays with fewer than 10 cities. Unsaved plays were not included in the analysis as they are stored locally on each player's computer and I do not have access to them.

How many U.S. cities can the average person name?

The median player named 104 cities. 75% of players named at least 47 cities, and 25% of players named 207 cities or more. Table 1 shows every tenth percentile.

percentile	score
90	377
80	244
70	179
60	136
50 (median)	104
40	78
30	56
20	38
10	23

Table 1: Scores by percentile, 10th to 90th

You should take these numbers with a grain of salt, because some players undoubtedly "cheated" and because not everyone was genuinely trying to name as many cities as they could. Also note that sessions with fewer than 10 cities named have been excluded from this analysis.

For real competitors, Table 2 has every percentile above the 90th.

percentile	score
99	1,190
98	896
97	714
96	618
95	548
94	501
93	463
92	430
91	401

Table 2: Scores by percentile, 91st to 99th

I've seen some plays with more than 20,000 cities named, which defy credulity, so the very highest percentiles are likely inflated a little, but I don't doubt that some people really can name more than 1,000 cities from memory.

What are the best-known cities?

Table 3 lists the twenty best-known cities in the United States, by the percentage of players that named them.

rank	city	percentage
1	New York, NY	90.8%
2	Los Angeles, CA	88.3%
3	Chicago, IL	84.1%
4	Miami, FL	82.8%
5	Las Vegas, NV	82.4%
6	San Francisco, CA	82.2%
7	Seattle, WA	81.8%
8	Dallas, TX	80.3%
9	Houston, TX	79.9%
10	Boston, MA	79.1%
11	Portland, OR	75.3%
12	Atlanta, GA	74.8%
13	Denver, CO	74.4%
14	San Diego, CA	74.3%
15	Detroit, MI	74.2%
16	New Orleans, LA	73.8%
17	Phoenix, AZ	72.6%
18	Washington, DC	72.4%
19	Philadelphia, PA	72.0%
20	Austin, TX	71.4%

Table 3: Best-known cities

Little surprise that New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago top the list. Sixteen of these twenty are also among the twenty most populous metropolitan areas in the United States,² while Portland (25th), Las Vegas (28th), Austin (29th) and New Orleans (45th) fall outside. The four top-twenty metro areas that don't make the best-known list are the Inland Empire (13th), Minneapolis (16th), Tampa (18th), and St. Louis (20th).³

The best-known cities with at least 15 letters in their name are shown in Table 4.

rank	city	percentage
1	Colorado Springs, CO	36.1%
2	Charlottesville, VA	20.4%
3	Huntington Beach, CA	9.6%
4	Truth or Consequences, NM	6.4%
5	Saratoga Springs, NY	4.9%
6	Rancho Cucamonga, CA	4.9%
7	International Falls, MN	4.5%
8	South San Francisco, CA	4.1%
9	Steamboat Springs, CO	3.5%
10	Panama City Beach, FL	3.3%

Table 4: Best-known cities with at least 15 letters

Table 5 has the best-known city for each letter of the alphabet.

letter	city	percentage
A	Atlanta, GA	74.8%
B	Boston, MA	79.1%
C	Chicago, IL	84.1%
D	Dallas, TX	80.3%
E	El Paso, TX	54.0%
F	Fort Worth, TX	48.2%
G	Green Bay, WI	37.6%
H	Houston, TX	79.9%
I	Indianapolis, IN	61.8%
J	Jacksonville, FL	56.5%
K	Kansas City, MO	66.5%
L	Los Angeles, CA	88.3%
M	Miami, FL	82.8%
N	New York, NY	90.8%
O	Orlando, FL	64.6%
P	Portland, OR	75.3%
Q	Quincy, MA	7.2%
R	Reno, NV	50.7%
S	San Francisco, CA	82.2%
T	Topeka, KS	65.5%
U	Utica, NY	14.3%
V	Virginia Beach, VA	26.1%
W	Washington, DC	72.4%
X	Xenia, OH	1.9%
Y	York, PA	16.7%
Z	Zion, IL	3.4%

Table 5: Best-known cities by letters of the alphabet

What cities are surprisingly well-known?

Perhaps more interesting than the best-known cities is the list of cities that are surprisingly well-known relative to their population. Using the quiz results, my friend Sasha Trubetskoy devised a piecewise linear regression that estimates the number of times a city is expected to be named, based on its population. By computing the ratio between a city's actual and expected popularity using this function, we can see how surprising the city's popularity is.

Table 6 ranks the twenty most surprisingly well-known cities by this metric.

rank	city	population	popularity	expected popularity
1	Montpelier, VT	7,855	27.0%	0.2%
2	London, OH	9,904	22.2%	0.3%
3	Aspen, CO	6,658	14.9%	0.2%
4	Pierre, SD	13,646	26.5%	0.4%
5	Juneau, AK	31,275	43.6%	0.7%
6	Berlin, NH	10,051	16.1%	0.3%
7	Brooklyn, OH	11,169	17.0%	0.3%
8	Gettysburg, PA	7,620	11.6%	0.2%
9	Palm Beach, FL	8,348	12.3%	0.2%
10	Helena, MT	28,190	34.7%	0.7%
11	Moab, UT	5,046	7.4%	0.1%
12	Adams, MA	5,515	7.2%	0.2%
13	Malibu, CA	12,645	14.9%	0.3%
14	Paris, TX	25,171	26.2%	0.6%
15	Augusta, ME	19,136	20.5%	0.5%
16	Toronto, OH	5,091	6.4%	0.1%
17	Key West, FL	24,649	24.4%	0.6%
18	Taos, NM	5,716	6.3%	0.2%
19	Dover, DE	36,047	34.8%	0.9%
20	Truth or Consequences, NM	6,475	6.4%	0.2%

Table 6: Surprisingly well-known cities

The list includes some cities that are legitimately well known, including state capitals (Montpelier, Pierre, Juneau, Helena, Augusta, Dover) and others (Aspen, Gettysburg, Palm Beach, Moab, Malibu, Key West, Taos, Truth or Consequences), as well as some cities sharing a name with a much larger counterpart that were likely guessed randomly or by mistake (London, Berlin, Brooklyn, Paris, Toronto). I assume that people got "Adams, MA" just by guessing that Adams would be the name of some city in the U.S.

All the surprisingly popular cities in the table above are quite small. If we limit it to cities with at least 50,000 people, we get Table 7.

rank	city	population	popularity	expected popularity
1	Cheyenne, WY	59,466	39.0%	2.1%
2	Carson City, NV	55,274	32.2%	1.9%
3	Santa Fe, NM	67,947	43.1%	2.7%
4	Bismarck, ND	61,272	34.9%	2.2%
5	Charleston, WV	51,400	22.8%	1.7%
6	Portland, ME	66,194	34.1%	2.6%
7	Albany, NY	97,856	55.0%	4.9%
8	Pensacola, FL	51,923	18.0%	1.7%
9	Manhattan, KS	52,281	16.6%	1.7%
10	Flagstaff, AZ	65,870	23.4%	2.5%
11	Topeka, KS	127,473	65.5%	7.6%
12	Iowa City, IA	67,862	22.3%	2.7%
13	Casper, WY	55,316	15.2%	1.9%
14	Trenton, NJ	84,913	30.8%	3.9%
15	Scranton, PA	76,089	25.0%	3.2%
16	Gary, IN	80,294	26.2%	3.5%
17	Niagara Falls, NY	50,193	11.5%	1.6%
18	Santa Cruz, CA	59,946	15.2%	2.2%
19	Green Bay, WI	104,057	37.6%	5.5%
20	Daytona Beach, FL	61,005	15.3%	2.2%

Table 7: Surprisingly well-known cities with 50,000 or more inhabitants

Again, we have many state capitals, but only one city with a famous name this time (Manhattan). Other cities are famous for various reasons: for example, Green Bay is home to a professional football team, and Scranton was the setting of a popular American sitcom (not to mention the birthplace of Joe Biden).

What cities are surprisingly obscure?

On the flip side of the coin, Table 8 has the twenty most surprisingly obscure cities.⁴

rank	city	population	popularity	expected popularity
1	Sunrise Manor, NV	189,372	0.6%	14.7%
2	Alafaya, FL	78,113	0.2%	3.4%
3	South Whittier, CA	57,156	0.1%	2.0%
4	Town 'n' Country, FL	78,442	0.2%	3.4%
5	Kendale Lakes, FL	56,148	0.1%	1.9%
6	Arden-Arcade, CA	92,186	0.3%	4.5%
7	Casas Adobes, AZ	66,795	0.2%	2.6%
8	Florin, CA	47,513	0.1%	1.5%
9	Country Club, FL	47,105	0.1%	1.4%
10	Aspen Hill, MD	48,759	0.1%	1.5%
11	Poinciana, FL	53,193	0.2%	1.8%
12	North Highlands, CA	42,694	0.1%	1.2%
13	San Tan Valley, AZ	81,321	0.3%	3.6%
14	Pine Hills, FL	60,076	0.2%	2.2%
15	Spring Valley, NV	178,395	1.3%	13.3%
16	Lehigh Acres, FL	86,784	0.4%	4.0%
17	Atascocita, TX	65,844	0.3%	2.5%
18	Mission Bend, TX	36,501	0.1%	0.9%
19	Tamiami, FL	55,271	0.2%	1.9%
20	Lake Ridge, VA	41,058	0.1%	1.1%

Table 8: Surprisingly obscure cities

Every city here is a census-designated place, a category created by the Census Bureau for localities that are not legally incorporated, which tend to be lesser-known than incorporated municipalities. Furthermore, all of them are suburbs in the Sun Belt, with a propensity towards smaller metro areas (Sacramento, Orlando). The Sun Belt is the fastest-growing region in the United States, and many of these cities were evidently founded too recently to have left much of an imprint on the popular imagination.

Since most of the cities in Table 8 are fairly small, Table 9 lists the most surprisingly obscure cities with at least 200,000 inhabitants.

rank	city	population	popularity	expected popularity
1	Garland, TX	226,876	5.4%	19.8%
2	Hialeah, FL	224,669	6.1%	19.5%
3	Chula Vista, CA	243,916	7.5%	22.3%
4	Gilbert, AZ	208,453	5.9%	17.2%
5	Chandler, AZ	236,123	7.5%	21.1%
6	Santa Ana, CA	324,528	13.3%	34.9%
7	Irving, TX	216,290	7.4%	18.3%
8	North Las Vegas, NV	216,961	7.6%	18.4%
9	Chesapeake, VA	222,209	8.7%	19.1%
10	Mesa, AZ	439,041	20.3%	43.3%

Table 9: Surprisingly obscure cities with 200,000 or more inhabitants

Once again, they are all suburbs and satellite cities in the Sun Belt.

The ten most forgotten state capitals are shown in Table 10.

rank	city	percentage
1	Concord, NH	13.5%
2	Jefferson City, MO	15.3%
3	Augusta, ME	16.0%
4	Frankfort, KY	16.2%
5	Charleston, WV	17.7%
6	Springfield, IL	20.3%
7	Pierre, SD	20.6%
8	Annapolis, MD	20.8%
9	Montpelier, VT	21.0%
10	Harrisburg, PA	21.5%

Table 10: Most forgotten state capitals

They are all either the capitals of small states (Concord, Augusta, Charleston, Pierre, Montpelier), the capitals of states with much larger cities (Jefferson City, Springfield, Annapolis, Harrisburg), or both (Frankfort).

Table 11 has the most forgotten states, by percentage of players who named at least one city in the state:

rank	state	percentage
1	West Virginia	38.4%
2	Vermont	39.9%
3	Delaware	43.0%
4	New Hampshire	44.5%
5	Wyoming	47.4%
6	South Dakota	49.9%
7	Maine	50.2%
8	Rhode Island	50.6%
9	Connecticut	53.0%
10	Montana	53.9%

Table 11: Most forgotten states

West Virginia, the most forgotten state, likely suffers from the fact that its capital and largest city, Charleston, is also the name of a larger city in South Carolina. Connecticut is the most populous state on the list, with 3.5 million people. Alaska and North Dakota are the least populous states not on the list, probably because Anchorage and Fargo are fairly well-known.

Miscellaneous stats

Finally, a few miscellaneous stats:

• Every city in the database has been guessed at least once, but 12 cities have only been guessed once.
• 21.1% of players named all 50 states; of those, 93.5% remembered the District of Columbia as well.
• 77.6% named New York City. But of the 22.4% that didn't, 6.0% nonetheless managed to name at least 500 cities. ∎