The United States is still very much a rural country. I was surprised to find out just how rural it is though.

Of the 304,059,724 residents in the US, only 84,268,009 live in cities larger than 100,000. And the majority of those (51%) live in cities with a population under 500,000. Here's the breakdown:

Here is that information with the cities under 100k included. Each red dot represents one city.

And here are the percentages for cities over 100k:

If we add in the remaining 219,791,715 people, we see that a full 73% of people in the United States live in cities (or towns or villages etc.) with a population under 100,000.

Here they are together:

Some interesting facts that became apparent:

• 1 in 36 people in the US live in NYC
• About 10 in 36 people live in cities with populations over 100k
• But less than 5 in 36 live in cities over 500k
• 26 in 36 people live in cities/towns/villages under 100k (there are actually nine different 'types' of places according to the US Census: borough, Census Designated Place (CDP), city, comunidad, county, municipality, town, urbana, and village)

Here's a table with all the data:

How the heck did Obama ever get elected?

(Sources: Census 2000 U.S. Gazetteer Files, 2008 US Census Estimates)