Michigan cities and towns

This directory lists every place the US Census Bureau tabulates in Michigan, 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 "Detroit city".

The largest place in Michigan is Detroit city with 636,644 residents, and the 745 places on this page hold 5,567,613 people between them. Median household income across the listed places runs from $19,688 to $250,001, and median home values range from $33,300 to $1,237,800 — 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.

Michigan is a city-weighted state without being a one-city state: 24 places above 50,000 residents hold 48% of the 5,567,613 people counted here, spread across several metros rather than one. Comparisons work best inside that tier — the 306 sub-thousand places on this list live in a different economy. The median row holds just 1,353 residents. At that scale margins of error widen sharply, and a single large household or seasonal population can shift a median.

Michigan runs cheap on housing relative to earnings: $152,700 median home value against $60,032 of household income works out to 2.5 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 — $876 a month, roughly 18% of median household income over a year.

The internal range is wide but not exceptional: $95,575 at the ninetieth percentile against $41,250 at the tenth, a 2.32× gap. At the edges, Barton Hills village tops the list at $250,001 and Elm Hall CDP anchors the bottom at $19,688.

Coverage is close to complete: only 14 of 745 rows show a blank where the Census suppressed an estimate for sample-size reasons. The rest are published five-year values, averaged over sixty months of responses.

How many places does Michigan have? 745 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. 41% 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 Michigan 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.