Jacksonville Is the Biggest City in the Lower 48: 874 Square Miles, Room for 2½ New York Cities and 15 More Facts About Its Size

Jacksonville is the largest city in the contiguous United States by total area. It covers 874.5 square miles of land and water, more than Houston, Oklahoma City, Phoenix or Los Angeles.

Only a handful of Alaska cities, where city limits stretch across huge, mostly empty boroughs, cover more ground. And Jacksonville's size isn't an accident of geography. It's the result of a single vote in 1967 that merged the city with almost all of Duval County.

Here are 16 facts about just how big Jacksonville is, how it got that way and what it means.

1. 874.5 square miles, and most of it is land

Jacksonville's city limits cover 874.5 square miles, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures:

• 747.3 square miles of land
• 127.1 square miles of water, mostly the St. Johns River, its tributaries and the Intracoastal Waterway

2. It's No. 1 in the lower 48

Here are the biggest U.S. cities by total area:

Source: Census Bureau figures as compiled by Wikipedia.

Every city ahead of Jacksonville is in Alaska. Of the cities with more than 100,000 people, only Anchorage is bigger.

3. The tiny town that edges Jacksonville on land

There's one asterisk. If you count land only, Jacksonville (747.3 square miles) is just behind Tribune, Kan. (778.2), a town of about 1,200 people that merged its government with all of Greeley County. Small consolidated governments like Tribune, and Anaconda and Butte in Montana, show up near the top of the list because their "city" limits are really a whole county.

By total area, land and water together, Jacksonville is bigger than all of them.

4. You could fit New York City inside it 2½ times

5. Its water alone is almost as big as Atlanta

Jacksonville's 127 square miles of water inside the city limits is nearly as much area as all of Atlanta's land (135.3 square miles).

6. It's bigger than every other Florida city by far

Tampa's land area is 114.5 square miles. Orlando's is 129.6. Jacksonville has more than five times the land of either one.

7. It got this big in one vote

On Aug. 8, 1967, Duval County voters approved merging the city of Jacksonville with the county government, 54,493 to 29,768. The consolidated government took effect on Oct. 1, 1968.

Overnight, the city's boundaries expanded to cover nearly all of Duval County.

8. Four towns said no thanks

Four municipalities kept their own governments and aren't part of the city of Jacksonville, even though they're in Duval County:

• Jacksonville Beach
• Atlantic Beach
• Neptune Beach
• Baldwin

That's why someone who lives in Jacksonville Beach doesn't technically live in Jacksonville.

9. Scandal helped push consolidation

The vote came after a rough decade for local government. A grand jury indicted 11 officials on 142 counts of bribery and larceny, including four of the city's nine council members. And in 1964, all 15 of the county's public high schools lost their accreditation. Supporters sold consolidation as a fresh start.

10. For a while, it was the biggest city in the world by land area

When consolidation took effect, Jacksonville briefly held the title of the largest city in land area in the entire world, until Juneau, Alaska, consolidated and claimed it.

11. Its first mayor under the new government: Hans Tanzler

Hans Tanzler became the first mayor of the consolidated city. Jacksonville was the second consolidated city-county government in Florida.

12. It's Florida's biggest city by population, too

Consolidation also made Jacksonville the most populous city in Florida, a title it still holds. The 2020 census counted 949,611 people inside the city limits, and the Census Bureau's 2024 survey estimated it had passed 1 million.

That's more than twice the population of Miami, whose city limits cover only a tiny fraction of the area.

13. But it's not very crowded

All that land means Jacksonville is spread out. Here's how many people live in each square mile of land:

New York packs about 23 times as many people into each square mile.

Put another way: if Jacksonville were as crowded as Atlanta, about 3,700 people per square mile, its 747 square miles of land would hold about 2.75 million people, more than Houston. If it were as crowded as New York, it would hold nearly 22 million, more than the entire population of New York state. Instead, Jacksonville has room to grow, and it has been: Duval County added about 67,000 people between 2020 and 2025, according to Census Bureau estimates.

14. It includes farms, forests and a national preserve

Because the city covers almost all of Duval County, "Jacksonville" includes much more than downtown and the suburbs: rural areas on the Westside and Northside, timberland, marshes and a big piece of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, the National Park Service area that includes Fort Caroline and Kingsley Plantation.

15. It's a long drive from one end to the other

From the Nassau County line in the north to the St. Johns County line in the south, and from Baldwin on the west to the beaches on the east, Jacksonville stretches across most of Duval County. Depending on traffic, driving from one corner of the city to the other can take close to an hour.

16. It's why Jacksonville services cover so much ground

A single city government means one sheriff's office, one fire and rescue department and one city council serve nearly the entire county. (The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, unusual for a big city, is led by an elected sheriff, a holdover from the county side of the merger.) It also means city crews maintain roads and parks spread across hundreds of square miles, one reason Jacksonville's budget debates so often come down to how to serve such a large area.

What's all inside those 874 square miles?

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

• Two Navy bases: Naval Air Station Jacksonville on the Westside and Naval Station Mayport at the mouth of the St. Johns River
• Jacksonville International Airport on the Northside, and Cecil Airport, the former Naval Air Station Cecil Field, on the far Westside
• Mayport Village, the fishing village known for its shrimp
• The University of North Florida and Jacksonville University
• EverBank Stadium, home of the Jaguars
• Big Talbot and Little Talbot islands and much of the marshland along the St. Johns and Nassau rivers

A drive from Cecil Airport to Mayport covers a big slice of the city, all without leaving Jacksonville.

Quick answers

What is the largest city in the United States by area?
Several Alaska cities, led by Sitka, have the most total area. In the contiguous United States, the answer is Jacksonville, at 874.5 square miles of land and water.

Is Jacksonville bigger than Rhode Island?
No, but it's not as far off as you might think. Jacksonville's 747 square miles of land is about three-quarters the size of Rhode Island's land area.

Why is Jacksonville so big?
Because in 1968, the city merged with nearly all of Duval County after voters approved consolidation in 1967. The city's limits now cover almost the whole county.

Is Jacksonville Beach part of Jacksonville?
No. Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach and Baldwin kept their own city governments, even though they're in Duval County.

How many people live in Jacksonville?
The 2020 census counted 949,611 people, and the Census Bureau's 2024 survey estimated more than 1 million, making it Florida's largest city.

The bottom line

Jacksonville is big in a way few American cities are. It's the largest city by total area in the lower 48, it has more land than New York, Chicago and Atlanta combined, and it got that way because voters decided in 1967 to make the city and the county one.

Did you know Jacksonville was this big? Tell us in the comments which part of town you think is most underrated.