Wisconsin cities and towns

This directory lists every place the US Census Bureau tabulates in Wisconsin, 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 "Milwaukee city".

The largest place in Wisconsin is Milwaukee city with 569,756 residents, and the 807 places on this page hold 4,417,335 people between them. Median household income across the listed places runs from $26,429 to $250,001, and median home values range from $15,800 to $1,486,100 — 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 Wisconsin is small. 51% of the 807 places here hold fewer than a thousand residents, while 12 carry 50,000 or more and account between them for 36% of the state's 4,417,335 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 940 residents. Rankings at the bottom of this list are within each other's margin of error, so treat close positions as ties.

Wisconsin runs cheap on housing relative to earnings: $175,200 median home value against $68,469 of household income works out to 2.6 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 — $872 a month, roughly 15% of median household income over a year.

The internal range is wide but not exceptional: $101,445 at the ninetieth percentile against $46,491 at the tenth, a 2.18× gap. At the edges, Chenequa village tops the list at $250,001 and Franks Field CDP anchors the bottom at $26,429.

Coverage is close to complete: only 19 of 807 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 Wisconsin have? 807 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. 51% 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 Wisconsin 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.