Random Census Geekery
So, on looking at the 2003 U.S. census data, I decided to try to come up with some new way of looking at the data. This is what I finally came up with:



It's pretty obvious what the largest city in every state is, and in fact, with only a few notable exceptions, the top 10 cities in the list of Largest Cities by State looks a lot like a list of the largest cities in the United States, at least at first...

Largest City	State	Population
1. New York City	New York	8,085,742
2. Los Angeles	California	3,819,951
3. Chicago	Illinois	2,869,121
4. Houston	Texas	2,009,690
5. Philadelphia	Pennsylvania	1,479,339
6. Phoenix	Arizona	1,388,416
7. Detroit	Michigan	911,402
8. Indianapolis	Indiana	783,438
9. Jacksonville	Florida	773,781
10. Columbus	Ohio	728,432

It only starts to get marginally surprising after Detroit. #8 Indianapolis and #9 Jacksonville make the list by having huge city limits that encompass quite a bit of the surrounding population. #10 just thoroughly surprised me at least. I guess I hadn't noticed when Columbus had passed up Cleveland.

From there, there are the "average" cities in the middle of the pack. I resumed my analysis again with the smallest 10 largest cities in their respective states. Unsurprisingly, this reads like a rundown of rural and smaller states:

Largest City	State	Population
41. Sioux Falls	South Dakota	133,834
42. Columbia	South Carolina	117,357
43. Manchester	New Hampshire	108,871
44. Billings	Montana	95,220
45. Fargo	North Dakota	91,484
46. Wilmington	Delaware	72,051
47. Portland	Maine	63,635
48. Cheyenne	Wyoming	54,374
49. Charleston	West Virginia	51,394
50. Burlington	Vermont	39,148

The only minor surprise here is that Alaska isn't represented. But, at 270,951 inhabitants, Anchorage actually places well up the list comparatively.

To be continued...