The messy, viral fight over America's fourth 'major' city
By Tessa McLean,
California Editor
Aug 19, 2025
Leave it to the internet to turn a simple question into a furious debate. Since July, social media platforms from TikTok to Threads have been tackling a hot new argument: What are the four major cities in the United States?
Arguably, the problem is in the question itself. What does “major” mean anyway? Is it population? Gross domestic product? Tourism? Cultural contributions? And most importantly, for our purposes at least, does San Francisco make the cut?
“Major” lacks a specific definition, leaving it up to the reader’s interpretation. In our unsophisticated analysis across social media platforms, most people agree that New York, LA and Chicago make the top three. But when it comes to the fourth major city, the internet is divided. Houston is the fourth-largest city by population. Washington, D.C., is the country’s capital. Boston is the center of academia. San Francisco, however, especially when referring to the Bay Area, has a fighting chance as a hub for technology and innovation.
When I asked Google, it put Houston as the fourth. ChatGPT spit out the same answer. Our incredibly biased newsroom was surprisingly split, with a few pushing for Miami or Atlanta.
The problem with the debate is that everyone comes to it with bias, said Dowell Myers, a demographer and professor at the University of Southern California. If you’ve lived in a city or region, you’re more likely to include it because you think it has outsized importance, even if that importance is only to you.
San Francisco needs to mean the whole Bay Area to be considered, Myers said, then there’s more of a case for its spot in the top four. “The Bay Area is still the capital of venture capital, and it keeps it really relevant,” he said. “Because of its importance for economic innovations that drive the economy in the nation and the world.”
Myers, somewhat controversially, said he doesn’t think Chicago deserves its place on the list anymore: Its population is stagnant, its airport is no longer the busiest, and it’s not one of the most diverse. Other than anchoring the Midwest — many have made an argument that each city should represent a different region of the country — it could be replaced by a Sun Belt city like Houston or Atlanta.
Forcing Myers to choose, he ultimately settled on New York, LA, Houston and D.C. He said Houston’s diversity has helped the city’s music and restaurant scene, catapulting it over a place like Chicago; plus, it’s the fourth-largest city by population. DC has an outsize importance politically. Plus, it has good food. (Myers said he liked this debate so much, he plans to use it in one of his classes next year.)
And nothing is more polarizing than food. If you go by the much-lauded Michelin guide, the top cities would be New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, D.C., as of 2025.
Joe Arbid, a self-described “avid Redditor,” noticed the question popping up on TikTok in July. He hadn’t seen the debate on Reddit yet, so he decided to pose the question in the geography subreddit. “It went pretty viral to say the least,” he laughed.
His post garnered almost 500,000 views on the platform, and more than 1,000 people left comments, with contributions being made more than two weeks later.
NYC, LA, Chicago and Washington, D.C., are Arbid’s top four, but he also decided to expand the question and listed what he thought should be the top 10 cities. He even added some honorable mentions. But it didn’t take long before commenters got so upset that he included Richmond, Virginia, prompting him to edit the original post. “I love nerding out over this stuff,” he said. “A lot of people want to make it more serious than it needs to be.”
Even brands jumped in on the conversation. ESPN agreed that the top three are NYC, LA and Chicago but urged followers to choose the fourth. Other commenters took the opportunity to turn the whole concept into a joke, dropping a list like this: Gary, Indiana; Fayetteville, North Carolina; Fargo, North Dakota; and Bakersfield.
Then, there came the spin-off debates, with one Reddit thread asking for the “big four” in a given country. France seemed to have a similarly difficult time naming its fourth major city. Paris, Marseille and Lyon were an easy top three, but it was a toss-up whether Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, Nice or Lille deserved fourth spot. The same issue occurred with Italy and Germany.
At least we’re not the only ones that don’t agree.