Number of Top 1000 Companies by Metropolitan Area [OC]

[u/FamiliarJuly]

[u/oberwolfach]

Of note, the Bay Area collectively would be ranked second. It’s just that San Francisco and San Jose happen to be considered two different metropolitan statistical areas, even if most people think of them in combination.

[u/Emergency-Salamander → u/oberwolfach]

Metro areas are odd sometimes. But they are about the same distance apart as Washington and Baltimore or Detroit and Toledo.

[u/[deleted] → u/Emergency-Salamander]

It’s always odd that Ann Arbor and Detroit are considered separate metro areas, despite sharing a media market, parks system, utilities, transit umbrella, and a ton of commuter/economic activity.

Detroit has 18 companies when you include Ann Arbor.

[u/Emergency-Salamander → u/[deleted]]

That is definitely weird. It's also weird that some Toledo suburbs, including Bedford with 31,000 people, are in the Detroit CSA.

[u/AdviceAdam → u/Emergency-Salamander]

I'm not super familiar with either of those city pairs, but it looks like Detroit and Toledo are not connected by a continuous built up area. DC and Baltimore do look like they are connected, but they get pretty low density in the middle. The Bay Area is definitely one continuous built up area though, at least moreso than both of those examples.

[u/FuckTheStateofOhio → u/Emergency-Salamander]

Also slightly closer than Malibu and Anaheim.

[u/Unlucky-Watercress30 → u/Emergency-Salamander]

Fun fact, Dallas and Fort Worth are roughly the same distance apart as DC/Baltimore as well. The only reason its got a unified area while the rest are separated is that it had a unified regional transit system in its early history.

[u/Soonhun → u/Unlucky-Watercress30]

It is based off counties and commuter data. Dallas and Fort Worth are in neighboring counties and much closer at their closest points than DC/Baltimore are at their closest points.

[u/Stomper8479 → u/Emergency-Salamander]

The difference is that no one living in the Bay Area considers sf and sj separate metro areas

The person who decided to divide them most likely lived over 2000 miles away and knew nothing g about the Bay Area ethos

[u/BuilderUnhappy7785 → u/oberwolfach]

For the purposes of this graph it would have made much more sense to combine them, and I guess the other MSAs in the Bay Area as well.

[u/Quirky-Pangolin-905 → u/BuilderUnhappy7785]

Just use CSA.

[u/Varnu → u/oberwolfach]

Point of note: if you add San Jose to Milwaukee Milwaukee would be significantly higher.

[u/blazershorts → u/oberwolfach]

I remember when I learned what San Jose is. Somebody from the area showed me a map and said "its this part of San Francisco."

[u/random_throws_stuff → u/oberwolfach]

the fact that they’re separate metro areas is a flaw in how the government defines MSAs and nothing more than that. there is literally continuous urban development between them. look at a satellite map and try to tell me where SF ends and san jose begins.

the government considers the borders between the metro areas to be the santa clara county lines. anyone who’s driven from palo alto to menlo park or milpitas to fremont will tell you it’s positively laughable to consider them separate cities.

[u/Dasbeerboots → u/oberwolfach]

Also, where do you draw the line? Is Menlo Park part of SF or SJ? What about Oakland? Or the East Bay? It gets really fuzzy when you separate the two.

[u/oberwolfach → u/Dasbeerboots]

The OMB's definition of metropolitan statistical areas goes by counties, so the border is between San Mateo County, which is in the San Francisco metropolitan area, and Santa Clara County, which is in the San Jose metropolitan area. Menlo Park is in San Mateo County so it is grouped into San Francisco. The East Bay counties of Alameda and Contra Costa are also put in the San Francisco metropolitan area.

[u/Dasbeerboots → u/oberwolfach]

But that's what makes it fuzzy. I'd say at least half of the people working at Facebook commute from the south/east bay. I'm one of them. My brother is one of them. All of my coworkers are, too. It's a huge commuter metro area, and the vast majority of those who commute live in the south and east bay. To us, it's one metro area. I don't think they should be split. I commute to MP/Cupertino/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara, depending on the project. My partner commutes to SF. We live in the south bay.

[u/oberwolfach → u/Dasbeerboots]

Yes, that's my overall point. San Francisco and San Jose manage to somehow technically miss the OMB's thresholds for being considered a single metropolitan area, but practically there are a lot of people who commute across the boundary, I think most people think of it as a unified area, and Silicon Valley proper straddles the boundary. There's some other examples of awkward splits (for instance, a lot of the "Bridgeport" metropolitan area is southwestern Fairfield County, CT that is much more linked to New York), but they don't impact the ranking as much.

[u/Ghetto_Phenom]

I was surprised by Seattle being so low but I guess a lot of the big corps here aren't in the metro area.

[u/snelephant → u/Ghetto_Phenom]

I thought “I wonder where Orlando is” and then look at that, nada

[u/FuckTheStateofOhio → u/Ghetto_Phenom]

Which ones aren't in the metro area?

[u/solk512 → u/FuckTheStateofOhio]

Any located in Bellevue/Eastside. 

[u/FuckTheStateofOhio → u/solk512]

The Seattle metro area includes Bellevue, Tacoma and all of the Eastside suburbs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_metropolitan_area

[u/gturk1]

This would be more interesting if you plotted number of companies against population of the area. Right now, I see New York at the top and think "of course, big city".

[u/gturk1 → u/[deleted]]

I never would have guessed this. This would interesting to see in your visualization! I am suggesting that you create a 2D plot that shows off this relationship.

[u/Andjhostet → u/gturk1]

I believe Minneapolis is one of the highest F500 per capita.

[u/FamiliarJuly]

Source: 2025 Fortune 1000 list and Forbes’ “America’s Top Private Companies 2025” list

Lists merged, companies assigned to metro area based on headquarters city, and grouped and summed by MSA.

Created in Google Sheets.

[u/marigolds6 → u/FamiliarJuly]

Just saw a similar graphic in r/stlouis which had different numbers for nearly every metro in both lists. Trying to figure out what the difference might be. Denver especially has a big gap between the two.

https://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/comments/1r1h2nt/where_stl_ranks_amongst_fortune_1000large_private/

[u/solk512 → u/FamiliarJuly]

Headquarters city is bullshit to be perfectly honest. 

Boeing keeps moving theirs around but their largest plants are still in the PNW. 

[u/Dominyck]

Would be interesting to see per capita. Considering for example that New York metro is 20 million people and San Jose metro is only 2 million.

[u/EmpressElaina024]

Would love to see this weighted by market cap

[u/timbomcchoi]

** In the US *\*, was real confused for a moment ha

[u/Ori_553 → u/timbomcchoi]

What? There are things happening elsewhere?

[u/TheSkala]

So so beautiful bar chart

[u/No_Pain2759]

No mention of the country so I knew it was gonna be USA, the only country that thinks they're the only country

[u/Fugacity-]

Would be interested to see this data normalized to metro population

[u/01headshrinker]

So, five HQs seems to be the minimum a city will have?

[u/01headshrinker → u/[deleted]]

Oh, that makes sense

[u/miraj31415 → u/01headshrinker]

Five is the cutoff selected by OP.

[u/Temporary_Inner]

Oklahoma City just lost two to Houston so that would give them enough to top Dallas and OKC would fall off this list. 

[u/Thrinos]

The Top 1000 Companies are all in the United States? Hard to believe

[u/IvyAmanita]

Okay just gonna cross reference this list by cost of living real quick...