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Higher or Lower: US City Populations

  • Higher or Lower
  • Keep your streak alive
  • Endless rounds

Is Jacksonville bigger than San Francisco? Does Columbus outnumber Boston? This higher or lower US city population game puts two American cities side by side and asks you to pick the one with more residents, using official 2020 Census counts for each city proper. From New York City to Billings, Montana, the matchups will test what you really know about where Americans live, and a few results are guaranteed to surprise you.

About this game

These figures count only the people living inside each city's legal boundaries on April 1, 2020, not the wider metro area. That is why a sprawling Sun Belt city that annexed its suburbs can outrank a famous older city whose limits were drawn long ago and whose suburbs hold most of the region's people. For consolidated city-county governments like Indianapolis, the Census figure for the main city is used.

Each round shows one city with its population revealed and a second city with its number hidden. Tap the city you think has more people, then see the real count. Get it right and that city becomes your new anchor, so your streak keeps growing. One wrong answer ends the run. Think about land area and recent growth, not just how often you hear a city's name on the news.

Source: US Census Bureau, 2020 Census population of incorporated places (city limits), as compiled on Wikipedia