Jacksonville Is the Biggest City in the Lower 48: 874 Square Miles and Room for 2½ New York Cities

Jacksonville, Fla. - Jacksonville is the largest city in the contiguous United States by area. It covers 874.5 square miles of land and water, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2025 Gazetteer, the bureau's official list of area for every U.S. city and town.

That's more than Houston, Oklahoma City, Phoenix or Los Angeles. Only four Alaska cities cover more ground, and their limits take in vast, mostly empty boroughs. Jacksonville got this big in 1967, when its voters decided to merge the city with Duval County.

Here's how big Jacksonville is, how it got that way and what it means.

874.5 square miles, most of it land

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2025 Gazetteer.

Most of the water is the St. Johns River, its tributaries and the Intracoastal Waterway. Jacksonville's water alone (127 square miles) is nearly as much as all of Atlanta's land (135 square miles).

No. 1 in the lower 48

These are the largest U.S. incorporated cities by total area:

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, 2025 Gazetteer (area) and Vintage 2025 population estimates.

Jacksonville ranks fifth by land area alone, too. Every city ahead of it is in Alaska, and of the four, only Anchorage has more than 100,000 people.

Room for 2½ New York Cities

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2025 Gazetteer.

One vote made the city this big

Duval County voters approved consolidating the city and county governments on Aug. 8, 1967, by nearly 2 to 1, WJCT News reports. The consolidated government took effect Oct. 1, 1968.

The Florida Legislature's 1967 consolidation act (Chapter 67-1320, Laws of Florida) folded the county, the city and several local boards into a single government, according to a 1999 opinion by Florida's attorney general. Later in the same session, lawmakers gave independence back to the beach cities and Baldwin.

Four towns stayed separate

Four municipalities in Duval County aren't part of the city of Jacksonville:

• Jacksonville Beach
• Atlantic Beach
• Neptune Beach
• Baldwin

State law, rewritten in 1978 and again in 1992, says the consolidated city "may not exercise any municipal power" inside those four, though it can exercise county power throughout Duval County. That's why someone who lives in Jacksonville Beach doesn't technically live in Jacksonville, though the consolidated government still provides county services there.

More than a million people, spread out

The Census Bureau estimates Jacksonville had 1,017,689 residents on July 1, 2025. That makes it Florida's largest city by far, more than twice the size of Miami (489,812). More on that in our story on the area's biggest cities.

All that land means Jacksonville isn't crowded:

Source: Jax Times calculation from Census Bureau Vintage 2025 population estimates and 2025 Gazetteer land area.

New York fits about 21 times as many people into each square mile. If Jacksonville were as dense as Atlanta, its 747 square miles of land would hold about 2.9 million people. At New York City's density, it would hold more than 21 million, more than New York state's 20 million.

What's inside those 874 square miles

Because the city covers almost all of Duval County, a lot of places that feel "outside town" are actually in Jacksonville:

• Naval Air Station Jacksonville and Naval Station Mayport
• Jacksonville International Airport and Cecil Airport
• Mayport Village
• The University of North Florida and Jacksonville University
• EverBank Stadium
• Big Talbot and Little Talbot islands, and much of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, including Kingsley Plantation

Quick answers

What is the largest U.S. city by area?
Sitka, Alaska, by total area. In the lower 48, it's Jacksonville, at 874.5 square miles.

Why is Jacksonville so big?
In 1967, voters approved merging the city with the Duval County government, and the city's limits now cover nearly the whole county.

Is Jacksonville Beach part of Jacksonville?
No. Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach and Baldwin are separate municipalities under state law.

How many people live in Jacksonville?
About 1,017,689, according to the Census Bureau's July 1, 2025, estimate.

How we did this

Jax Times rebuilt this story on Oct. 24, 2026, from these sources:

• Area: the U.S. Census Bureau's 2025 Gazetteer place file. Rankings cover active incorporated places.
• Population: the Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 city and town estimates. Density is our calculation: population divided by land area.
• Consolidation law and the four separate towns: Florida Attorney General's informal opinion of Oct. 4, 1999, on the Town of Baldwin.
• Vote date and margin: WJCT News.

An earlier version of this story used Wikipedia and wrongly said a small Kansas town edged Jacksonville in land area. The 2025 Census figures show Jacksonville fifth by land area, behind only four Alaska cities.