Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2020 January 9

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January 9

Smallest incorporated municipality in the US by area

What are the smallest incorporated municipality (village/town/city etc.) in the US by area?– Gilliam (talk) 19:16, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

@Gilliam: Likely Monowi,_Nebraska, which is less than 1/4 square mile. RudolfRed (talk) 19:29, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Woodlawn, Kentucky is 0.05 sq mi as is Crossgate, Kentucky, both incorporated municipalities. It's difficult to effectively search for the smallest municipality by area without regard to population. – Gilliam (talk) 22:36, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Falls Church, Virginia is a giant compared to those two at 2.11 square miles, but its particularity, as noted in the article, is that it's the smallest independent municipality (i.e. not part of any county) in the U.S. --Xuxl (talk) 13:29, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

• By area, the two smallest incorporated municipalities in the US are Mobile City, Texas and Poplar Hills, Kentucky, which depending on the source, each has an area reported between 0.02 sq mi and 0.04 sq mi; mostly due to rounding errors since most sources don't get down to smaller units. One of those two is the smallest in the U.S. For comparison, that's about the area of ten football fields. --Jayron32 17:57, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
  • The TIGER files[1] have Sycamore, Kentucky listed at 42,862m² vs Poplar Hill's 66,029m² both class "C1" which i believe is incorporated. Both are called "home rule-class" in the articles. Someone could go through all 70 some of those dbase files looking for smaller ones, if they felt like it.—eric 18:12, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
  • 39,049m² for Mobile City, TX and 13,088m² for unincorporated Rafael Pena, Texas.—eric 18:18, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
    • The OP specifically asked for incorporated. The term "unincorporated place" just means "any place that has a name". They are not municipalities. --Jayron32 19:13, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
      • It's the smallest Census-designated place, not just a named place. Should have linked TIGER, and Understanding "Place" in Census Bureau Data Products especially pages 9 and 10 in that PDF: The distinction between “legal” and “statistical” as well as incorporated and unincorporated can be fuzzy for some CDPs. You can cross all CDP smaller than Clayton off any "fuzzy" incorporation list though, they are all in Texas, with LSAD 57 and functional status S, though i did not know that until finding the gazetteer files. I thought (while admittedly not what was specifically asked for) the smallest CDP might be of passing interest to someone.—eric 05:25, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
  • And the census gazetteer files[2] (which i think is the same source only aggregated) has Clayton, Idaho smallest at 39,033m².—eric 18:31, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
    • That seems to beat Mobile City. It is, according to my research, an honest-to-god municipality, in that it has a mayor and a city council, according to this. Interestingly, it has a population of 7 with 12 registered voters, which seems like an interesting trick. --Jayron32 19:13, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
      • One way the number of voters could be greater than the population would be if some former residents joined the military or moved to a foreign country or joined the military. The person who moved to a foreign country would continue to be a voter where he/she last resided in the US until he/she established a new US residence. The military member can continue to be considered a resident, for voting and driving purposes, of his/her last civilian residence, if the member wants to, even if the military member is stationed at a base in the US. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:14, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
        • The City tax boundary for Clayton is 186,720m², considerably larger than the census place and may include some additional residences on Kinnikinic Creek Road. I don't know the source of the discrepancy, or how a town's tax district could differ from the municipal boundary submitted for the census. Wikipedia uses the census places frequently without qualification. It may simply be that the Clayton has annexed an area not yet reflected in the census information, and is not currently the smallest. But that would not explain the population sign and voter roll numbers Idaho Code 50-402 may help.—eric 15:13, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

In many places, you can vote if you're not a resident but own property in the municipality (and pay municipal taxes as a result). That could be the case here, with non-resident property owners swelling the voter ranks. Xuxl (talk) 18:07, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• Sorry about the side trip to Clayton, layers provided by Custer County[3] show three annexed parcels not reflected in the census TIGER files. The text in Poplar Hills, Kentucky and Mobile City, Texas claiming a tie for smallest probably came from looking at List of United States cities by population density which is obviously wrong. The smallest seems to be Mobile City: a trailer park, restaurant, and liquor store[4] incorporated in 1990[5] by thirsty residents of dry Rockwall County, Texas. It is completely surrounded[6] by Fate, Texas, and since other towns in the county have voted to allow sales of beer and wine in 2007[7] it seems unlikely there will be any need for further expansion.—eric 00:02, 13 January 2020 (UTC)