U.S. Cities That Lost Half Their Population

Cities that at one point declined by at least 50%, after having reached at least 50,000 people.
The column headings are shortened to fit on mobile. They are: Peak Population / Peak Year / Lowest Population Since Peak / Low Year / % Decline / 2020 Population/ City

Population numbers are only from an official census. No intermittent year wild guesses.

Some cities' old boundaries did lose over 50%, but they had annexed land and thus escaped this statistical fate.

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Last updated: October 28, 2022

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First submitted	October 14, 2022
Times taken	63
Average score	50.0%
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Peak	Year	Low	Year	%	2020	City
52,959	1930	Now		-83.0	8,977	Highland Park, MI
82,366	1950	Now		-77.4	18,649	E. St. Louis, IL
67,327	1920	Now		-72.6	18,411	Johnstown, PA
55,355	1940	Now		-68.1	17,727	McKeesport, PA
56,268	1930	18,372	1990	-67.3	28,433	Hamtramck, MI
1,849,568	1950	Now		-65.4	639,111	Detroit
856,796	1950	Now		-64.8	301,578	St. Louis
168,330	1950	Now		-64.3	60,068	Youngstown
178,320	1960	Now		-61.3	69,093	Gary, IN
914,808	1950	Now		-59.8	367,991	Cleveland
196,940	1960	Now		-58.7	81,252	Flint
61,659	1930	Now		-56.1	27,062	Wheeling, WV
676,806	1950	Now		-55.2	302,971	Pittsburgh
98,265	1960	Now		-55.0	44,202	Saginaw
580,132	1950	261,310	2010	-55.0	278,349	Buffalo
102,394	1960	Now		-52.5	48,671	Niagara Falls
86,626	1930	41,498	2010	-52.1	44,328	Wilkes-Barre
66,039	1950	Now		-50.6	32,605	Chester, PA

Level 89

Oct 14, 2022

I'm certain someone will be looking for New Orleans. It certainly had a temporary mass exodus in 2005, but the people were still considered residents. At the previous census of 2000, New Orleans had 484,674 people. By the 2010 U.S. Census, 343,829 were living back in the city. New Orleans had been trending downward for decades as can be seen here:

1900.......287,104.......+18.6%

1910.......339,075.......+18.1%

1920.......387,219.......+14.2%

1930.......458,762.......+18.5%

1940.......494,537.........+7.8%

1950.......570,445.......+15.3%

1960.......627,525.......+10.0%

1970.......593,471.........−5.4%

1980.......557,515.........−6.1%

1990.......496,938.......−10.9%

2000.......484,674.........−2.5%

2010.......343,829.......−29.1%

2020.......383,997.......+11.7%

Level 89

Oct 14, 2022

Pittsburgh's suburbs have been particularly hard hit. They are all quite physically small, so never had the population threshold to make the list. Some are less than 1/10 the size they were 100 years ago.

Level 59

Dec 10, 2022

If Pittsburgh annexed these suburbs, would it be spared from this statistical fate?

Level 89

Dec 10, 2022

Pittsburgh & Allegheny County have debated consolidation for some time. The county is divided into 130 municipalities with no unincorporated land. Presumably many of these micro suburbs would insist on using the larger city on a daily basis while maintaining tax independence as happens often when city-county consolidations are considered.

If the county in whole merged with Pittsburgh, it would have 1,250,578 people in 730 mi² (1,900 km²), making it the 2nd largest city physically in the U.S. outside of Alaska, just behind Jacksonville's 747 mi².

The entire area has plummeted, with Allegheny County having 1,628,587 people in 1960, a 23.2% decrease. That's a modest increase of 27,000 from the nadir in 2010.

It's too bad; it's actually a very beautiful setting for a city.

Level 89

Dec 10, 2022

I like your work in magnets by the way.

Level 89

Oct 14, 2022

The largest town to have all but completely disappeared is Picher, Oklahoma. It went from around 10,000 in 1920 to 20 stubborn hold outs in 2020.

Despite a multitude of flat-out lies by modern day gold diggers of Western states, the largest ghost towns in the U.S. are by far and away east of the Rockies. Many, like Picher and the famous subterranean inferno of Centralia, Pennsylvania, are former towns that have severe dangers of cave-ins and toxic waste. Niagara Falls' Love Canal toxic disaster site would have brought that settlement completely down were it not for the cash cow of the falls themselves.

Level 57

Feb 16, 2024

there are also a few in the rust belt here and there that went from decently sized towns to almost nothing, barely even worthy of appearing on maps of their own county.

one example is Cairo, Illinois, a city on the Ohio River that went from around 16,000 people in the mid 20th century to only 1,700 people in the 2020 census, and people are still leaving by the hundreds.

Level 89

Feb 16, 2024

My former longtime girlfriend's family came from Cairo. It's a sizeable ghost town now. Very important river port once, at the biggest river junction on the Mississippi. But being on a thin, flat peninsula between the Ohio & Mississippi, it was impossible to stop the flooding.

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