A Place to Call Home - Size Distribution of Minnesota Cities

by Cameron Macht
August  2011

According to the 2010 Census, there were 854 cities in the state of Minnesota ranging in size from the five people residing in Funkley[1] to 382,600 people in Minneapolis and covering everywhere in between.  Spread all across the state, the majority of cities in Minnesota were small – including nearly 60 percent that had fewer than 1,000 people. In contrast, the majority of the state’s population lived in big cities, including nearly 80 percent that lived in the 100 largest cities in the state (see Table 1).

Just over 710 cities had fewer than 5,000 people in 2010, accounting for 83.5 percent of the cities in Minnesota but just 12.9 percent of the state’s population. Even more disparate are Minnesota’s 360 smallest cities which comprise over 40 percent of the cities but less than 1.5 percent of the state’s total population.

Regardless of size, these cities all contribute to our residents’ high quality of life, providing different things to different people. Some cities provide opportunity and change, others provide safety and familiarity. All provide a place to call home.

Flex in the City

With the state as a whole growing 7.8 percent from 2000 to 2010, the majority of cities in Minnesota saw population gains as well. In fact, Minnesota’s population in cities grew 10.1 percent during the last decade, gaining nearly 400,000 new residents. Cities now account for more than 80 percent of Minnesota’s population, while the remaining 18 percent reside in townships and unorganized areas, which saw a -1.3 percent decline over the last 10 years.

Larger cities were more likely to see population increases, but hundreds of smaller cities also enjoyed population increases over the last decade. About three-fourths of the cities with 5,000 to 99,999 people were expanding their population, while less than half of the state’s biggest and smallest cities were seeing gains (see Table 2).

Bright Lights, Big Cities

There are just three cities in the state of Minnesota with more than 100,000 people. The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul are easily the largest cities in the state of Minnesota, forming the core of the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington MN-WI Metropolitan Statistical Area, a 13-county region that is the 16th largest metropolitan area in the United States. With nearly 3.3 million people in 11 counties in Minnesota and two counties in Wisconsin, the Twin Cities metro is the state’s population hub (see Map).

After essentially holding steady over the last decade – beginning and ending with about 382,600 people – Minneapolis is the 48th largest city in the nation. Although the capitol city of St. Paul saw a small population decline – losing about 2,000 people from 2000 to 2010, a -0.7 percent drop, it is still the 67th largest city in the U.S. Despite the decline, one in every eight people in the state lives in either Minneapolis or St. Paul.

The third largest city in the state is Rochester, which surpassed 100,000 people between 2000 and 2010. In fact, Rochester added nearly 21,000 people over the decade, giving it the largest numeric population gain of any city in the state. Perhaps best known for the Mayo Clinic, the city’s 24.4 percent gain was also among the fastest increases for large cities (see Table 3).

The ‘Burbs

There are 13 cities in Minnesota with between 50,000 and 99,999 people, 11 of which are located in the Twin Cities metro area. The largest is Bloomington with about 83,000 people, followed by Brooklyn Park, Plymouth, Eagan, Woodbury, Maple Grove, Coon Rapids, Eden Prairie, Burnsville, Blaine, and Lakeville. Woodbury, Lakeville, Blaine, and Maple Grove all grew more than 20 percent from 2000 to 2010, and each gained more than 10,000 new residents (see Table 3).

The other two cities in this size class are Duluth and St. Cloud, which both have their own metropolitan statistical areas. Duluth is the fourth largest city in the state with 86,265 people, the principal city in an MSA that encompasses St. Louis and Carlton Counties in Minnesota and Douglas County in Wisconsin. Duluth-Superior is the second largest MSA in Minnesota and the 166th largest in the U.S.

The city of St. Cloud spans three counties: Stearns, Benton, and Sherburne. By itself, St. Cloud is smaller than Rochester, but when St. Cloud’s surrounding cities – including Waite Park (6,715), Sauk Rapids (12,773), Sartell (15,876), St. Augusta (3,317), and St. Joseph (6,534), which all directly border the city – are added in, they account for 111,057 people. All told, the St. Cloud and Rochester MSAs both have just under 190,000 people, putting them in the top 225 largest MSAs in the U.S.A.

Not Stuck In the Middle

The next tier of cities in Minnesota had between 35,000 and 50,000 people. Again, two of the cities in this category were located in their own metropolitan area, while the other seven were part of the Twin Cities – Minnetonka, Apple Valley, Edina, St. Louis Park, Maplewood, Shakopee, and Richfield.  After gaining nearly 7,000 people, Mankato made the jump from being a Micropolitan Statistical Area to becoming the Mankato-North Mankato Metropolitan Statistical Area. As part of the Fargo-Moorhead ND-MN MSA, Moorhead grew nearly 20 percent over the last decade, an increase of nearly 6,000 people.

There were 30 cities with 20,000 to 34,999 people, including five in greater Minnesota, all of which were Micropolitan Statistical Areas. To be so classified, these areas “must have at least one urban cluster of at least 10,000 but less than 50,000 population.”[2]  The largest was Winona, followed by Austin, Faribault and Northfield, and Owatonna. As a size class, the 39 cities with 20,000 to 49,999 people saw the largest population gain, adding more than 115,000 people from 2000 to 2010 (see Table 2).

Micropolitan Statistical Areas

Another 40 cities have between 10,000 and 19,999 people, representing another set of Micropolitans and suburbs around the Twin Cities and other metro areas. The largest Micropolitan in this category is Willmar, followed by Albert Lea, Red Wing, Hutchinson, Marshall, Brainerd, New Ulm, Bemidji, Fergus Falls, Worthington, and Fairmont (see Table 4).

Population growth was varied among the state’s micropolitans, ranging from a 25.5 percent increase in Alexandria to a -2.5 percent decline in Fergus Falls. In some cases, including Austin, Marshall, Owatonna, Willmar, and Worthington, the principal city accounted for all of the population growth in the Micropolitan area.

 Flying Past 5,000

Perhaps surprisingly, the fastest growing group of cities in the state had between 5,000 and 9,999 people in 2010, represented by the likes of rapidly expanding cities like Wyoming, Rogers, Isanti, Albertville, and Zimmerman. In fact, 13 of the 15 fastest growing cities in this category jumped up from the smaller 2,500 to 4,999 size class in the previous decade.

This size class also included smaller regional employment centers in greater Minnesota including Waseca, Virginia, Thief River Falls, Detroit Lakes, Little Falls, Crookston, Litchfield, Montevideo, Morris, Redwood Falls, and Lake City.

County Seats

Two-thirds of the cities in this size class saw population growth, including 11 cities that more than doubled their population over the last decade. In fact, the fastest growing city in the state of Minnesota was Elko New Market which, after a merger of the two cities in 2007, jumped from 804 people in 2000 to 4,110 people in 2010.

Over 80 percent of the cities with 1,000 to 4,999 people were located in greater Minnesota, with many of them serving as the largest city in their county. Surprisingly, 33 of the state’s 87 counties were led by cities in this size class, including: La Crescent in Houston County, Luverne in Rock County, Princeton in Mille Lacs County, Windom in Cottonwood County, St. James in Watonwan County, Pipestone in Pipestone County, Wadena in Wadena County, Two Harbors in Lake County, Park Rapids in Hubbard County, Mora in Kanabec County, Long Prairie in Todd County, Breckenridge in Wilkin County, Blue Earth in Faribault County, Benson in Swift County, Pine City in Pine County, Granite Falls in Yellow Medicine County,  Roseau in Roseau County, Glenwood in Pope County, Olivia in Renville County, Spring Valley in Fillmore County, Gaylord in Sibley County, Aitkin in Aitkin County, Slayton in Murray County, Ortonville in Big Stone County, Ada in Norman County, Warren in Marshall County, Madison in Lac qui Parle County, Red Lake Falls in Red Lake County, Wheaton in Traverse County, Bagley in Clearwater County, Grand Marais in Cook County, Mahnomen in Mahnomen County, and Baudette in Lake of the Woods County.

Born in a Small Town

The largest number of cities in Minnesota are the smallest cities with fewer than 1,000 people. About one in every six cities in the state had between 500 and 999 people, with just over half of them seeing population increases from 2000 to 2010.

Over two-fifths (42.2 percent) of the cities had less than 500 people. However, adding the population of all 360 cities with fewer than 500 people yields a total of just over 76,000 people, making them in total about the same size as the city of Brooklyn Park. More than 60 percent of these 360 small towns in Minnesota saw population declines over the last decade. Funkley, the only city in the state with single digit population after Tenney voted to dissolve, lost two-thirds of its residents from 2000 to 2010.

Conclusion

Some cities were gaining population and others were losing. But regardless of size or population change, each city contributes to the quality of life enjoyed by residents of Minnesota. Big or small, these cities offer people the chance to live, work, and play, and provide a place to call home.

[1] Funkley is considered a city under Minnesota’s 1973 statute 413.02, which declared that all villages and boroughs were henceforth legally cities. 

[2] “About Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas.” www.census.gov/population/www/metroareas/aboutmetro.html

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