Top 10 Most Populated U.S. Cities: Latest Census Ranking
New York City leads the latest U.S. city population ranking. Compare the top 10 using July 2025 estimates and prepare a clean, sourced public table.
New York City is the most populated U.S. city, with an estimated 8,584,629 residents on July 1, 2025. Los Angeles and Chicago rank second and third. These are city populations—not metropolitan-area totals—from the Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 estimates, released on May 14, 2026. (Census release)
Use the table below for a sourced ranking, then retain its reference date and geography when preparing a spreadsheet for publication.
The top 10 by city population
U.S. city resident population estimates, July 1, 2025 — Vintage 2025
| Rank | City | State | Population estimate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York City | New York | 8,584,629 |
| 2 | Los Angeles | California | 3,869,089 |
| 3 | Chicago | Illinois | 2,731,585 |
| 4 | Houston | Texas | 2,397,315 |
| 5 | Phoenix | Arizona | 1,665,481 |
| 6 | Philadelphia | Pennsylvania | 1,574,281 |
| 7 | San Antonio | Texas | 1,548,422 |
| 8 | San Diego | California | 1,406,106 |
| 9 | Dallas | Texas | 1,329,491 |
| 10 | Fort Worth | Texas | 1,028,117 |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ranked population-estimates workbook, SUB-IP-EST2025-ANNRNK. City names above are shortened for display; values are shown as published, without rounding to thousands or millions.
Texas has four cities in the top 10, and California has two. Fort Worth holds the tenth spot; Jacksonville follows at number 11 with 1,017,689 residents. (Census ranking, Table 5)
What this ranking measures
This table compares residents within the cities’ legal boundaries. It does not combine a city with neighboring suburbs or rank broader metropolitan regions. For example, Dallas and Fort Worth remain separate rows.
These are population estimates, not new decennial census counts. The Census Bureau updates its subcounty estimates annually using county population estimates, housing-unit information and group-quarters populations. It also accounts for legal boundary changes, so changes over time should not automatically be interpreted as migration alone. (Vintage 2025 methodology)
As of October 6, 2026, the Bureau identifies Vintage 2025 as its most recent completed, consistent set of city and town estimates. Label the table “July 1, 2025 population estimates”, rather than “2026 population,” even though the release appeared in 2026. (Census data page)
Prepare a clean file for a public data page
Copy the ten rows into a spreadsheet with one header row and one city per row. A useful export structure is:
rank,city,state,population_estimate,reference_date,estimate_vintage,geography_type
For every row, use 2025-07-01 as the reference date, 2025 as the estimate vintage, and city proper as the geography label. Then:
- Keep population numeric. Store
8584629, not8.58 millionor a number with embedded commas. Apply thousands separators only as display formatting. - Keep the original rank column. Readers may sort by city or state; the rank should still indicate the national population order.
- Document provenance. Include the Census Bureau, source-table identifier, workbook link and release date in the published description or accompanying notes.
- Check the exported file. Reopen the CSV and confirm ten data rows, numeric population values and a descending population sort that reproduces ranks 1–10.
If you add a bar chart, use city names as categories, population as the measure and a zero baseline. Keep the exact-value table available alongside it.
For a growth comparison, take both years from the same vintage: the Census Bureau revises earlier estimates with each annual release and advises against mixing vintages for year-to-year comparisons. (Census release notes) See public ranking-table disclosures for additional checks before sharing the dataset.