Sitka Leads the Ranking, but City Boundaries Matter

Sitka, Alaska, is the largest US city by land area in this ranking, at 2,870.3 square miles, followed by Juneau, Wrangell and Anchorage. The figures come from the Census Bureau’s 2026 Alaska Places Gazetteer. The ranking covers municipal places and consolidated-government balances in the 50 states and Washington, DC, excluding census-designated places. Under that definition, Greeley County’s unified-government balance—not Jacksonville—is the largest entry outside Alaska.

“Area” here means land inside Census place boundaries, not metropolitan area, developed land or population. Including water changes some positions; excluding consolidated-government balances changes which places qualify. Those choices belong beside the ranking rather than hidden in a footnote.

Choose the full ranking or the entries outside Alaska; the largest qualifying place and table update together.

The Top 10 Largest US Cities by Land Area

Dataset vintage: 2026. The table uses Census place names and land area rounded to one decimal place. It includes consolidated-government balance records because the scope is municipal places, not only places whose names end in “city.”

Rank	Census Place Name	State	Land Area, Sq. Mi.
1	Sitka city and borough	AK	2,870.3
2	Juneau city and borough	AK	2,703.0
3	Wrangell city and borough	AK	2,556.3
4	Anchorage municipality	AK	1,706.8
5	Greeley County unified government (balance)	KS	777.4
6	Jacksonville city	FL	747.3
7	Anaconda-Deer Lodge County	MT	736.7
8	Butte-Silver Bow (balance)	MT	715.8
9	Houston city	TX	640.8
10	Oklahoma City city	OK	607.0

The Alaska records are in the file linked above. The remaining records come from the official state Places Gazetteers for Kansas, Florida, Montana, Texas and Oklahoma.

Alaska occupies the first four positions. Jacksonville is sixth nationally under this inclusion rule and follows Greeley County’s balance among the entries outside Alaska. Calling Jacksonville the largest without specifying a different eligibility rule would not describe this dataset.

These measurements represent administrative territory. They do not show how much land is developed, how continuous the settlement is, or how many people live there. A large municipal boundary is not evidence of a large urban footprint.

The interactive table retains the national rank when you select entries outside Alaska. Greeley County therefore still displays rank 5, even though it becomes the first visible row. That preserves the distinction between a place’s position in the full ranking and its position within a filtered view.

Land Area and Total Area Give Different Answers

The Gazetteer separates ALAND_SQMI, land area in square miles, from AWATER_SQMI, water area in square miles. The Census record layout defines both fields. This ranking sorts on the land field alone.

Total area in square miles equals ALAND_SQMI plus AWATER_SQMI.

That distinction changes the order of Juneau and Wrangell. Using the 2026 Alaska file, Wrangell has approximately 3,471.1 square miles of total area, compared with Juneau’s 3,258.0. Wrangell moves ahead of Juneau when water is included, although Juneau has more land.

Place	Land Area, Sq. Mi.	Total Area, Sq. Mi.
Juneau	2,703.0	~3,258.0
Wrangell	2,556.3	~3,471.1

The total-area figures are calculated from the Alaska Gazetteer’s land and water fields. They are not a separate national total-area ranking. The supplied comparison establishes the reversal between these two places; it does not provide total-area figures for every entry in the top 10.

For a public table, label the measurement explicitly as “Land Area, Square Miles.” A heading that says only “Area” leaves readers unable to tell whether water is included. Keep the land and water fields separate in the underlying spreadsheet, even if the published view shows only land.

If you build a total-area version, calculate totals for every eligible record and sort that complete dataset again. Do not simply rearrange these 10 land-area leaders: a different measurement could change which records enter the top 10, not just their order.

Consolidated-Government Balances Explain the Unusual Entries

A place name containing “county” can appear in this municipal-place ranking because the table includes consolidated-government entries. That does not make this a ranking of all US counties. The unit being compared remains the Census place record.

The Census Bureau defines a balance as the portion of a consolidated city outside other separately incorporated places. Its geography glossary uses Butte-Silver Bow as an example: the balance excludes Walkerville.

The qualifier therefore changes the territory represented by the row. “Butte-Silver Bow (balance)” is not interchangeable with an unspecified whole-county figure. Removing “balance” for a cleaner display would remove information readers need to interpret the area.

Greeley County’s Balance Is Not Tribune City

The 2026 Kansas file lists Tribune city at 0.742 square miles and Greeley County unified government (balance) at 777.417 square miles. They are separate geographic records. The top-10 table rounds the latter to 777.4 square miles; it does not assign that area to Tribune.

The local government’s description also distinguishes Tribune from Horace, which retained its own city council when the unified government formed in 2009. This is another reason not to substitute a familiar town name for the Census label.

Keep “Greeley County unified government (balance)” in a source-facing table. A compact interactive view can shorten its visible label, but the full record name should remain available in row details. That allows readers to recognize the location without confusing the balance with a separately listed city.

Excluding Balances Requires a New Ranking

A ranking restricted to a narrower class of cities can be valid, but it answers a different question. Its eligibility rule must say which consolidated-government records are excluded and why.

Do not remove Greeley County and Butte-Silver Bow from this table and present the remaining rows as a newly verified top 10. Once records are excluded, the next eligible places must be drawn from the full source dataset. The supplied extract does not include replacement rows below rank 10.

The same caution applies to Alaska. Excluding Alaska creates a geographic subset; excluding consolidated governments changes the type of place being measured. Those are different filters and should not share an ambiguous label such as “regular cities.”

Municipal Area Is Not Metropolitan Size or Population

This table answers how much land falls within the selected Census municipal-place boundaries. It does not compare metropolitan regions, built-up urban areas or population totals. Substituting any of those measures would require a different dataset and a different table heading.

The Gazetteer contains no population counts. You cannot infer population rank from these area values, and the supplied figures do not support a population-density comparison on their own.

If you later add population, document the population source and year separately from the area-data vintage. A table labeled “2026” should make clear whether that date describes its boundaries, its population estimates, or both. Here it describes the Gazetteer vintage used for the geographic measurements.

For the same reason, avoid describing these places as the “biggest urban areas.” The land field includes territory inside the administrative boundary without establishing that all of it is urbanized. The precise claim supported by the table is largest municipal places by land area under the stated inclusion rule.

Build a Reproducible Spreadsheet From the Gazetteer

For a fuller extract, use the Places download on the 2026 Census Gazetteer page. Start with the complete eligible dataset if you need to change the scope, measurement or number of ranked rows.

Preserve Geographic Identifiers During Import

The 2026 files use pipes (|), not commas. Select the pipe delimiter during import rather than treating the source as an ordinary comma-separated file. A successful import should put the geographic name and each measurement in their own columns.

Preserve GEOID as text so Alaska’s leading zero survives. An identifier is a key, not a quantity: converting it to a number can change its written form without making it more useful for analysis.

Retain NAME, USPS, LSAD and FUNCSTAT for geographic identification and review. Even if the public table hides some of these fields, keeping them in the working extract makes it easier to check which record was included and whether its shortened display name is accurate.

Do not use the place name alone as the spreadsheet’s identifier. Keep the source identifier alongside the name so that display edits do not erase the connection to the Census record.

Filter Eligible Places Before Assigning Ranks

Apply the municipal-place and consolidated-balance inclusion rule before sorting. Exclude census-designated places. If you use the national download, exclude Puerto Rico to match this table’s 50-state-and-DC scope.

Filtering first makes the ranking reproducible: each rank refers to a record that passed the same eligibility test. Sorting first and then deleting unwanted records can leave rank gaps or conceal which records should fill the vacated positions.

Keep the distinction between rebuilding a ranking and filtering its published view. A rebuilt ranking assigns positions within the newly defined dataset. A filtered view, like the embed above, can retain original national ranks as long as its column heading makes that clear.

Sort Numeric Values Before Rounding

Store land and water as numeric fields. Sort by the land values before rounding them for display, then show one decimal place to match this table. Retain the underlying precision in the working spreadsheet.

Do not place “sq. mi.” inside each numeric cell. Put the unit in the column heading so that readers can sort and filter measurements as numbers rather than text. Likewise, presentation formatting should not become part of the stored value.

Add gazetteer_year and source_url columns. Those fields let a downloaded row retain its provenance even when it is separated from the article or copied into another spreadsheet. If you calculate total area, give that derived field a distinct name rather than overwriting the land measurement.

Publish the Definition Alongside the Data

Use one header row and one place per row, without a totals row. A totals row is not another ranked place and can interfere with a sortable public table. Keep the scope, measurement and rounding rule beside the published dataset.

For a smaller extract, the Excel filtering workflow can help isolate the intended records before export. Keep the source-facing names in that extract, including “balance,” rather than relying on an article paragraph to restore missing geographic qualifiers.

TablePage accepts CSV, TSV, XLSX and XLS files and turns an upload into a public dataset page with a shareable link and filterable table. Upload only the intended public extract, then check that geographic names, numeric columns and source information remain readable.

In the published view, confirm that sorting treats land area as numeric and that filtering does not silently redefine the rank column. A reader selecting Florida should see Jacksonville’s national position unless the table explicitly recalculates a Florida-only ranking.

The finished page should preserve the answer’s boundaries: Sitka leads by land area, the figures use the 2026 Gazetteer, consolidated-government balances are included, and population and developed land are not being ranked. Those qualifications make the table reusable without turning its precise result into a broader claim.