Sizing up Austin

How Austin's giant city limits measure up to other major U.S. cities

How Austin's city limits measure up to other major U.S. cities

Austin skyline downtown at night
A new infographic helps us visualize just how expansive Austin's city limits are. Texas Wide Open for Business/Facebook

How big is Austin, really?

By looking at a helpful new infographic from the folks at Sparefoot, we can confidently say, "pretty damn big." The self-storage company used MAPfrappe to create side-by-side comparisons of Austin's city limits and the size of other major cities.

According Sparefoot, Austin occupies 274 square miles. With a population of about 885,400 people, that sticks us with an average of 3,231 people per square mile.

Before we start complaining about elbow room in Austin, we should count our blessings: Austin has a comparable population to San Francisco, but almost six times the space. San Francisco has 837,442 people, but only 47 square miles to put them in, meaning an average of 17,867 San Franciscans coexist in the same space as 3,231 Austinites.

In contrast, people in Anchorage have more than enough personal space. With a population of 300,950 (less than half of Austin's) and 1,704 square miles of space (which equals more than six Austins), there is an average of 177 Alaskans per square mile.

Among the cities included in the infographic, Austin is surprisingly closest in size to New York City. The Big Apple only has 31 square miles on the Capital City, but a whopping 7.5 million more people, making for a population density that is nearly nine times that of Austin — 27,578 people per square mile, to be exact.

Head over to Sparefoot to see exactly how Austin's city limits stack up against other cities.