When you think of the biggest city in the U.S., your brain probably goes straight to the concrete jungle of New York or the endless suburban sprawl of Los Angeles. Maybe you’re a trivia buff and you guess Jacksonville, Florida, because you heard once that it’s technically massive. You’d be wrong. Honestly, most people are.
If we're talking about the largest city in america by area, the answer isn't a bustling metropolis with millions of people. It’s a quiet, rainy, breathtakingly beautiful spot in the Pacific Northwest.
The crown belongs to Sitka, Alaska.
It’s huge. Like, mind-bogglingly big. We are talking about a city that covers approximately 2,870 square miles of land. If you include the water within its official boundaries, that number jumps to over 4,800 square miles. To put that in perspective, you could fit the entire state of Rhode Island inside Sitka’s city limits nearly four times. Yet, only about 8,400 people actually live there.
The Wild Reality of Sitka's Size
How does a town with fewer residents than a medium-sized college football stadium become the largest city in america by area? It comes down to how Alaska handles its "City and Borough" governments.
Back in 2000, the city of Sitka and the surrounding borough merged into one single entity. In the Lower 48, we usually think of a city as a dense cluster of buildings and a "county" as the bigger area around it. Alaska doesn't really do "normal." By merging, Sitka basically swallowed an entire island (Baranof Island) and part of another one (Chichagof Island).
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Most of this "city" is actually the Tongass National Forest. It's filled with grizzly bears, soaring bald eagles, and ancient Sitka spruce trees rather than skyscrapers or Starbucks. You’ve got more miles of hiking trails than you do paved roads. Seriously, there are only about 14 miles of road in the whole place. You can't even drive there; you have to take a plane or a ferry.
The Top 4 Are All in Alaska
It’s almost a clean sweep for the Last Frontier. If you’re looking at the list of the largest cities by land area, Alaska takes the top four spots:
- Sitka, Alaska: ~2,870 square miles
- Juneau, Alaska: ~2,702 square miles
- Wrangell, Alaska: ~2,542 square miles
- Anchorage, Alaska: ~1,705 square miles
Juneau, the state capital, is basically a massive glacier with a small town attached to it. Wrangell is tiny in population but massive in footprint. Anchorage is the only one on this list that actually feels like a big city, but even then, most of its acreage is the Chugach State Park.
What About the "Lower 48"?
Okay, so maybe you feel like Alaska is cheating. If we exclude the Alaskan giants, who takes the prize?
That’s where Jacksonville, Florida comes in. It covers about 747 square miles. Back in the late 1960s, Jacksonville did a similar thing to Sitka—it consolidated with Duval County to fix some budget and corruption issues. Overnight, it became a geographic titan.
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It’s a weird experience driving through Jacksonville. You can be in the "city" for 45 minutes, passing through pine forests and swampy wetlands, wondering when you’re actually going to see a building.
Following Jacksonville, you have cities like Oklahoma City (606 square miles) and Houston (640 square miles). Houston is the one everyone thinks is the biggest because it feels like it never ends, but legally, it's still smaller than a rainy town in Alaska where people commute by boat.
Why Does This Matter for Travelers?
If you’re planning a trip to the largest city in america by area, don't pack for a city break. Pack for a wilderness expedition.
Visiting Sitka is a trip into Russian-American history. It was the capital of Russian America before the U.S. bought the territory in 1867. You can still see the St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral with its copper onion domes. But the real draw is the scale.
- The Scale of Nature: You can kayak in Sitka Sound and be surrounded by mountains that look like they belong in a fantasy novel.
- The Disconnect: Because the city area is so huge and the population so small, it’s one of the few places in America where you can be within "city limits" and be completely, utterly alone in the wilderness.
- The Cost of Size: Managing a city this big is a nightmare. Imagine having to maintain emergency services or land management for thousands of square miles of forest with a tax base of only 8,000 people.
Comparing the Giants: Area vs. Population
It’s a funny contrast. New York City, the place we all associate with "bigness," only covers about 300 square miles of land. You could fit nearly ten New York Cities inside the land area of Sitka.
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But while NYC holds over 8 million people, Sitka holds about the same number of people as a large suburban high school. It’s a reminder that "size" is a relative term. In the East, size is about verticality and density. In the West and Alaska, size is about the horizon.
A Quick Breakdown of Land Area (Square Miles)
- Sitka, AK: 2,870
- Jacksonville, FL: 747
- Houston, TX: 640
- Oklahoma City, OK: 606
- Phoenix, AZ: 517
- Los Angeles, CA: 469
- New York City, NY: 300
The Misconception of "Urban"
The biggest mistake people make is assuming "City" equals "Urban." In most of the world, that's true. In America, thanks to various annexations and consolidations, a "city" can be a desert, a mountain range, or a rainforest.
When you search for the largest city in america by area, you aren't looking for a map of streets; you're looking at a map of legal boundaries. Sitka’s borders are a political reality, but the physical reality is deep, mossy woods and cold Pacific waves.
Honestly, it’s kinda cool that the "biggest" city in the country is a place where nature still wins. It's a place where the city council has to worry about landslide zones and whale migration as much as they do about potholes or zoning laws.
If you want to experience the sheer scale of the largest city in America for yourself, your next step is to look into the Alaska Marine Highway System. It's the ferry network that connects Sitka to the rest of the world. Since you can't drive there, it's your best bet for seeing those 2,800 square miles of Alaskan wild. Check the seasonal schedules, as sailings are much more frequent in the summer than in the icy winter months.