Nine metro cities (all with populations of more than 5 million) are home to just about one quarter of the United States' population, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report based on 2010 data that was released this week.

While it's not a surprise the New York and Los Angeles metro areas lead the list of the most densely populated cities, the bottom half of the top five were a little surprising.

Take a look at the list:

  1. New York (includes the Northern New Jersey-Long Island areas)  18.897 million people over 6,686 square miles (or 2,826 per square mile)
  2. Los Angeles (Includes Long Beach and Santa Ana)  12.828 million people over 4,848 square miles (or 2,646 people per square mile)
  3. San Francisco (Includes Oakland and Fremont)  4.335 million over 2,470 square miles (or 1,754 per square mile)
  4. Trenton-Ewing, N.J.  366,513 people over 224 square miles (or 1,632 per square mile)
  5. Honolulu, HI  953,207 people over 600 square miles (or 1,586 per square mile)

Overall, the average population density in the United States is 87 people per square mile.

The Census Bureau laid out the population-weighted density visually for us:

census population density map of the united states U.S. Census Bureau


DON'T MISS: Take Tour Of The New Most Expensive Zip Code In America