Largest Cities by Population

The Data Behind This Ranking

This list ranks the top 50 U.S. cities on the “Largest Cities by Population” metric using PlainMove’s modeled 2-bedroom cost estimates, route coverage, and U.S. Census population data combined with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration carrier records. The top-ranked city in this view is New York, NY with a score of 8,336,817 on the population measure, while the 50th position is held by Salt Lake City, UT at 200,567. The median row, the midpoint between those two extremes, falls on Memphis, TN, which anchors the “typical” position within this slice of the ranked cohort and gives a useful sanity check against the headline number many readers fixate on.

Looking across the full set of 50 cities, the average modeled 2-bedroom move cost is roughly $2,588 and each of these cities has on average 49 priced moving routes in our index, with an average BLS-derived base mover hourly rate of $18/hour. Collectively the 50 listed cities represent roughly 48,213,671 residents, which is a substantial share of the addressable U.S. interstate moving market because large cities originate and receive a disproportionate share of household-goods shipments. Every row in the table is clickable, navigating through to a specific city page will show that city’s full route grid (both outbound and inbound), its local-mover hourly rate, and its regional cost-of-living index used in all PlainMove estimates.

Geographically, the top 10 of this ranking is led by West with 4 of those 10 cities and South with 3 cities as the secondary cluster, a signal about which U.S. regions drive the extreme values on this particular metric. Each ranked cost figure derives from Bureau of Labor Statistics OES 2023 wage data for laborers and material movers (SOC code 53-7062), blended with haversine route distances between city centroids and a $0.50-per-mile fuel and vehicle component. Carrier data referenced on downstream city and mover pages comes from the FMCSA SAFER registry. Any decision to actually move between two cities should still be verified with three binding quotes from FMCSA-licensed carriers, the ranking is a planning anchor, not a quote, and does not include optional services like packing, storage-in-transit, or shuttle fees.