50 Largest U.S. Cities Ranked From Most “Country” To Least
Even though 80% of Americans now live in urban areas it doesn’t mean they’ve all lost touch with their country roots. There are still American cities where people drive pickups to the symphony, order a domestic beer with their sushi, and experience nirvana in a duck blind instead of a meditation class.
Here at Estately, we sought to find out just which of the 5- largest U.S. cities are the most “country” To do this, we took the 50 most populated cities and ranked them from 1-50 based on the percentage of Facebook users listing these ten topics as interests: country music, fishing, hunting, NASCAR, firearms, barbecue, cowboy boots, pickup trucks, rodeos, and sweet tea.
In the end, Fort Worth, Texas won the crown of “America’s Most Country City,” and San Francisco, California came in last, The complete rankings are below; please keep in mind the numbers indicate a city’s rank out of 50 (1 being best, 50 being worst), and they’re ordered from most country to least country.
The Most & Least Country-Minded Cities In America
Profiles of America’s 10 Most Country Cities
10th—Jacksonville, FL
Lynyrd Skynyrd hails from Jacksonville, and that wasn’t even factored in our criteria. The city did come in first in our fishing rankings, and it’s got a true love of sweet tea (3rd most).
9th—Albuquerque, NM
Somewhere in New Mexico has to provide a counterbalance to all the new age abracadabra going on in Taos and Santa Fe, and Albuquerque is abiding. It’s definitely a safe spot to turn up the country music (8th most) in the parking lot of a rodeo (9th most).
8th—Nashville, TN
Nashville and Austin, Texas both claim the title of “Country Music Capital”, but Nashville is definitely more country than its Texas twin. Nashville comes in first in our country music rankings (Austin’s 10th), and it’s ranked high for NASCAR (2nd most), fishing (3rd most), and barbecue (5th most).
7th—Colorado Springs, CO
Colorado Springs is the most enthusiastic major city in professing its love of firearms, and some of those firearms are used for hunting (3rd most). However, it is rumored to be illegal to ride a horse while intoxicated in the state of Colorado. Not sure how that relates, but it seems noteworthy.
6th—Wichita, KS
Wichita was in the top five for firearms, hunting, and fishing, which is pretty country. There are no statistics for which city has the most wild fish and game in the deep freeze, but our money is on Wichita.
5th—El Paso, TX
El Paso cracks the top twenty in all ten of our categories, scoring particularly high marks for hunting (2nd), cowboy boots (4th), and pickup trucks (5th). The city is also known to make considerably better salsa than the second least country city—New York, NY.
4th—Oklahoma City, OK
Don’t let the skyscrapers fool you, even as it’s grown Oklahoma City has definitely maintained its country cred. Given the city’s enthusiasm for hunting—most of any major U.S. city—there are likely traffic jams on the way out of town at the start of deer hunting season. Oklahoma City also tops for cowboy boots as well, and if you want to get stomped by someone wearing a pair just say “George Strait is overrated”.
3rd—Tulsa, OK
Tulsa, Oklahoma likes its music country (2nd highest), its beer cold (who doesn’t?), its steak country fried (224 local restaurants serve it), and its barbecue anyway it can get it (44 barbecue joints in town).
2nd—San Antonio, TX
Austin, Texas may be the “Country Music Capital of the World,” but San Antonio has a higher percentage of country music fans. They topped Austin in every other category in our study as well, with the exception of barbecue. And if you’re looking for someone who can last the full eight seconds on a bull, your odds of finding one are significantly higher in San Antonio because it’s tops in our rodeo rankings.
1st—Fort Worth, TX
Dallas and Fort Worth may be neighbors, but Fort Worth is definitely the one that changes its own oil and keeps the cooler stocked with a cold beer on ice. When it comes to keeping it country, Fort Worth is definitely the real deal. Cowtown’s stockyards are no longer the center of cattle drives, but the city is still the birthplace of Townes Van Zandt, it loves pickup trucks more than any other city in our rankings, and it’s home to Billy Bob’s Texas—the world’s largest honky-tonk. The city is so country it’s rumored judges in Fort Worth court rooms give visiting Dallas attorneys grief if they’re not wearing cowboy boots. All this combined earns Fort Worth the title of “Most Country City in America.” Congrats.
Profiles of America’s Least Country Cities
41st—San Diego, CA
San Diego thinks Jason Aldean is a brand of artisanal vegan sausages.
42nd—San Jose, CA
If you’ve ever seen a herd of computer programmers doing trust falls in the woods during a company retreat you’ll know why San Jose didn’t come out high on this list.
43rd—Long Beach, CA
He’s had some success with his attempts at reggae, but Snoop Doggy Dogg will never successfully crossover to country music and America is a better place because of it.
44th—Seattle, WA (tie)
All the taxidermy littering the walls of Seattle bars and restaurants come from animals who died of natural causes.
44th—Oakland, CA (tie)
Nope.
46th—Boston, MA
Dozens of people from Boston are lost every year while attempting to navigate corn maizes in the countryside.
47th—Los Angeles, CA (tie)
It’s a wonder Hollywood can find any actors at all to ride a horse in a movie.
47th—Washington, DC (tie)
If you asked the average resident of our nation’s capital who Brad Paisley is they would probably tell you he’s a junior Senator from Wisconsin.
49th—New York City, NY
If you see cowboy boots on a New Yorker there’s a 50% chance that person is a prostitute.
50th—San Francisco, CA
If someone in San Francisco claims, “This is most certainly not my first rodeo” then there’s a 99% chance that person is a liar.
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Estately is a national online real estate search site whose articles have been featured in the The Wall Street Journal, CNET, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, NBC News, Philadelphia Magazine, GeekWire, The Denver Post, and more.
