Gazetteer & Your Place

The New York metropolitan area holds about 3.4 million Black residents — more than any metro in the nation — and the city itself about two million.

Metro Atlanta holds more than two million Black residents — roughly one in three, second only to New York.

The Washington metro holds about 1.6 million Black residents, and the District itself — long a majority-Black city — now records a Black share near 41 percent.

The Houston metro holds about 1.3 million Black residents, and the city about half a million — roughly one in five Houstonians.

Dallas–Fort Worth holds about 1.2 million Black residents.

The Los Angeles metro holds close to a million Black residents — a shrinking share of a vast region, dispersing from historic South Los Angeles to the Inland Empire.

Detroit is the most heavily Black large city in the United States — about four in five residents — and its metro holds nearly a million Black residents.

Greater Miami holds more than a million Black residents — African American, Haitian, Jamaican, and Afro-Latino — the most Caribbean Black metropolis in America.

About three in five Baltimoreans are Black, and the metro holds some 850,000 Black residents.

The Chicago metro holds about 1.6 million Black residents; the city itself counted 787,551 in the last census, just under 29 percent.

Philadelphia holds about 680,000 Black residents in the city and 1.35 million across the metro — one of the oldest and largest Black populations in the North.

Las Vegas and Clark County hold about 330,000 Black residents — from the Historic Westside to the fastest-growing suburbs in Nevada.

Charlotte holds about 300,000 Black residents in the city and more than 600,000 across the metro — a banking-boom population between the old Brooklyn and the new suburbs.

Jacksonville holds about 295,000 Black residents — nearly a third of the consolidated city — in the Bold City's port and naval economy.

Columbus holds about 275,000 Black residents — nearly a third of the city — the largest Black population of any Ohio city.

Indianapolis holds about 260,000 Black residents — nearly three in ten — from the Indiana Avenue corridor to the township suburbs.

Milwaukee holds about 245,000 Black residents in the city — two in five — in the metro that segregation indices have ranked at the top for decades.

New Orleans holds about 230,000 Black residents — roughly three in five of the city — remade by Katrina's displacement and a partial return.

Nashville holds about 195,000 Black residents in Davidson County — and the densest HBCU cluster in America relative to its size.

Cleveland holds about 185,000 Black residents — nearly half the city — in a Great Migration metropolis whose Black suburbs are among America's oldest.

Boston holds about 160,000 Black residents in the city and near half a million across the metro — an abolitionist-era community reshaped by Caribbean migration.

Newark holds about 160,000 Black residents — half the city — at the center of Essex County's great Black suburban landscape.

Kansas City holds about 150,000 Black residents in the Missouri city — and a metro population near 270,000 divided by the famous Troost line.

St. Louis holds about 140,000 Black residents in the city and more than half a million across the bi-state metro.

Birmingham is about seven-tenths Black — some 140,000 residents — at the center of a 300,000-person Black metro built by steel and enterprise.

Phoenix holds about 125,000 Black residents in the city and 250,000 across the Valley — a Black metropolis built in the suburbs of the boom.

Greensboro holds about 125,000 Black residents in the city and 210,000 across the Triad — home to the nation's largest HBCU.

Baton Rouge is majority-Black — about 125,000 city residents — home to the largest HBCU system in America.

Montgomery holds about 125,000 Black residents in the city and 155,000 across the metro — a majority-Black capital holding both foundings.

Jackson is nearly four-fifths Black — the most heavily Black state capital in America — with about 300,000 Black residents across its metro.

San Antonio holds about 110,000 Black residents in the city and 165,000 across the metro — the east-side community of America's military capital.

Oklahoma City holds about 110,000 Black residents in the city and 200,000 across the metro — from jazz-age Deep Deuce to Langston's orbit.

Richmond holds about 105,000 Black residents — nearly half the city — in a capital whose Black history runs from slavery's marketplace to Maggie Walker's bank.

San Diego holds about 105,000 Black residents in the city and 190,000 across the metro — a military-built community in America's finest-weather city.

Augusta holds about 105,000 Black residents in the city and 150,000 across the metro — a majority-Black Georgia city with James Brown in its marrow.

Shreveport holds about 105,000 Black residents in the city and 145,000 across the metro — a majority-Black city on the Red River.

Buffalo holds about 100,000 Black residents in the city — a third of its population — and 160,000 across the metro.

Tampa holds about 95,000 Black residents in the city and 340,000 across Tampa Bay — including St.

Hampton Roads holds about 500,000 Black residents across Norfolk, Hampton, Newport News, and Portsmouth — a military-and-HBCU metro like no other.

Durham holds about 95,000 Black residents in the city and 150,000 across its metro — the city that built Black Wall Street beside Tulsa.

Fayetteville holds about 95,000 Black residents in the city and 135,000 across the metro — a community built beside the Army's largest post.

Mobile holds about 95,000 Black residents in the city and 140,000 across the metro — nearly half the city, from Africatown to the shipping channel.

Winston-Salem holds about 90,000 Black residents in the city and 130,000 across the metro — a tobacco city with an HBCU and an arts identity.

Savannah holds about 88,000 Black residents in the city and 125,000 across the metro — from First African Baptist's 1773 founding to the port's modern cranes.

Austin holds about 85,000 Black residents in the city and 155,000 across the metro — a shrinking share of a booming city.

Little Rock holds about 85,000 Black residents in the city — two-fifths — and 260,000 across the metro.

Rochester holds about 85,000 Black residents in the city — two-fifths — and 170,000 across the metro.

Orlando holds about 80,000 Black residents in the city and 420,000 across the metro — from America's oldest Black town to the theme-park economy.

Sacramento holds about 75,000 Black residents in the city and 165,000 across the metro — a state-capital community in California's affordability refuge.

Toledo holds about 75,000 Black residents in the city and 95,000 across the metro — over a quarter of the Glass City, from Scott High's maroon to the Jeep plant.

Pittsburgh holds about 70,000 Black residents in the city and 200,000 across the metro — from the Hill District's jazz age to the East End's present.

Denver holds about 65,000 Black residents in the city and 185,000 across the metro — a community whose center of gravity has shifted to the suburbs.

Tulsa holds about 65,000 Black residents in the city and 105,000 across the metro — on the most famous thirty-five blocks in Black economic history.

Seattle holds about 60,000 Black residents in the city and 230,000 across the metro — a small share by this section's standards, transformed by the Central District's change.

Omaha holds about 60,000 Black residents in the city and 95,000 across the metro — Malcolm X's birthplace and the plains' oldest Black community.

Dayton holds about 58,000 Black residents in the city and 100,000 across the metro — the West Side that gave the world the Ohio Players.

Columbia holds about 55,000 Black residents in the city — two-fifths — and 240,000 across the metro.

Flint holds about 55,000 Black residents in the city and 82,000 across the metro — a majority-Black city whose name became a warning.

Greenville holds about 55,000 Black residents in the city and 155,000 across the metro — the South Carolina Upstate's anchor community.

Portland holds about 50,000 Black residents in the city and 150,000 across the metro — a community displaced from its historic district to the city's edge.

Lexington holds about 46,000 Black residents in the city and 58,000 across the metro — home to the Black jockeys who ruled the early Derby.

Wichita holds about 45,000 Black residents in the city and 70,000 across the metro — an aircraft town's compact Black community.

Syracuse holds about 45,000 Black residents in the city — nearly a third — and 85,000 across the metro.

Grand Rapids holds about 38,000 Black residents in the city and 60,000 across the metro — West Michigan's largest Black community.

Knoxville holds about 32,000 Black residents in the city and 52,000 across the metro — East Tennessee's largest Black community, from Beck's archive to the Sunsphere.

Albany holds about 29,000 Black residents in the city and 95,000 across the Capital Region — a community older than the republic it now helps govern.

Tucson holds about 29,000 Black residents in the city and 46,000 across the metro — a desert community built by the railroad, the university, and Davis-Monthan.

Charleston's Black share fell from a majority to under a fifth of the city — while the metro's Black population grew in North Charleston and the suburbs.

Providence holds about 28,000 Black residents in the city and 105,000 across Rhode Island — home to America's Cape Verdean heartland.

Des Moines holds about 25,000 Black residents in the city and 50,000 across the metro — small in count, central in Iowa's Black data.

El Paso holds about 24,000 Black residents in the city and 29,000 across the metro — a small share of a border metropolis, built largely by Fort Bliss.

Cincinnati holds about 135,000 Black residents — over two-fifths of the city — in the border city where the Underground Railroad crossed the Ohio.

Lansing holds about 27,000 Black residents in the city and 45,000 across the metro — Michigan's capital, an auto town, and a state-government city.

Hartford is nearly two-fifths Black in the city — about 45,000 residents — with a Caribbean depth rare in New England.

Fort Wayne's Black community, about 42,000 strong and 15% of the city, grew with the Harvester and wire plants and holds the southeast side.

South Bend's Black community, about 27,000 strong and 26% of the city, built itself around Studebaker and Bendix and remade its politics.

Worcester's Black community, about 27,000 strong and 13% of the city, grew with the wire mills and anchors today's eds-and-meds economy.

New Haven's Black community, about 42,000 strong and 31% of the city, is among Connecticut's largest — rooted in Dixwell Avenue's century of institutions.

Bridgeport's Black community, about 52,000 strong and 35% of the city, is Connecticut's biggest — built on the East End's factory century.

Akron's Black community, about 59,000 strong and 31% of the city, was built by the tire plants and carries one of Ohio's deepest Black civic records.

Youngstown's Black community, about 26,000 and 44% of the city, lived the steel collapse that made the city's name an economics term — and runs the city that remains.

Harrisburg's Black community, about 26,000 and a majority of Pennsylvania's capital city, governs a capital from neighborhoods a freeway was driven through.

Beaumont's Black community, about 55,000 and nearly half the city, was built by Spindletop's oil and the refinery corridor — and anchors Texas's Golden Triangle.

Trenton's Black community, roughly 44,000 and half the capital, governs a city the state works in and leaves — the Making and remaking files in one ledger.

Incorporated in 1887 and immortalized by Zora Neale Hurston, Eatonville still governs itself — a small town carrying an outsized share of the record.

Founded in 1887 by men born enslaved, Mound Bayou remains almost entirely Black — a Delta town whose hospital, bank, and oil mill wrote a century's proof of concept.