Iowa cities and towns

This directory lists every place the US Census Bureau tabulates in Iowa, ranked from the largest to the smallest by population. Incorporated cities, towns and villages appear alongside census-designated places (CDPs) — unincorporated communities that have no local government of their own but are counted separately because they have a recognised name and settled population. The suffix in each name ("city", "town", "village", "CDP") is the Census legal/statistical description, which is why you will see entries such as "Des Moines city".

The largest place in Iowa is Des Moines city with 212,464 residents, and the 1,026 places on this page hold 2,610,083 people between them. Median household income across the listed places runs from $17,500 to $250,001, and median home values range from $21,700 to $591,700 — a spread that shows how much local housing markets diverge inside a single state.

Every figure comes from the American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year five-year estimates, which average survey responses over sixty months. That averaging is what makes small towns measurable at all, but it also means the numbers describe the period as a whole rather than today. Blank cells are estimates the Census suppressed because the local sample was too small to publish reliably. Select any place to open its full profile with affordability ratios, poverty and homeownership rates, and links to nearby communities of similar size.

Most of what is listed for Iowa is small. 72% of the 1,026 places here hold fewer than a thousand residents, while 11 carry 50,000 or more and account between them for 39% of the state's 2,610,083 counted people. The ranking below is really two lists stacked together: a short one of cities and a very long one of villages. These are mostly very small areas — the median place counts 417 residents. Rankings at the bottom of this list are within each other's margin of error, so treat close positions as ties.

Iowa runs cheap on housing relative to earnings: $113,600 median home value against $64,844 of household income works out to 1.8 years of gross income, against 3.9 nationally. Incomes are lower here too, so the local comparison that matters for a move is rent. Rent stays modest against earnings — $783 a month, roughly 14% of median household income over a year.

Middle-of-the-road dispersion: $47,143 to $91,875 across the tenth-to-ninetieth percentile band, a 1.95× spread. Oak Hills CDP tops the list at $250,001 and Jolley city anchors the bottom at $17,500, but those two are not where most of this list sits.

About one row in 13 is incomplete — 77 of 1,026 places have a suppressed estimate, almost all of them at the small end. Five-year estimates average responses over sixty months, so what is published is a stable baseline rather than a reading of this month's market.

How many places does Iowa have? 1,026 appear in the current federal tabulation, counting incorporated cities, towns and villages together with census-designated places — unincorporated communities with no local government of their own. 72% of them have fewer than a thousand residents, so the list is far longer than the number of towns you would recognise by name.

Which Iowa row should I compare mine against? Pick places within roughly the same population band. In a state this spread out, size drives the housing and income figures more than region does.

How current is this? Every figure comes from the American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year release published by the US Census Bureau, ACS 2019-2023 5-year estimates. It reflects the full survey window rather than a single date, and it is the most recent vintage available for places this small.