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In Adak, Alaska, a Cold War naval base once supported a community large enough to have its own movie theater and ski area. The latest federal estimate puts the city at 112 residents. In Fair Bluff, North Carolina, two hurricanes devastated the old downtown, so the town built a new business center on higher ground. And in Cawker City, Kansas, the population has slipped while its most famous resident, a giant ball of twine, keeps getting bigger.
All 18 places had fewer residents in the July 2025 federal estimates than in the 2010 census. Some are still losing population. Others have stabilized or regained a little ground after much larger losses. Population counts reflect births and deaths as well as moves, so they show how much a community has shrunk without telling us why every household left.
1. Centralia, Pennsylvania
A fire that began in 1962 spread through abandoned coal workings beneath Centralia. Smoke and dangerous gases rose through the ground, and a federally funded relocation program helped move residents out. Pennsylvania estimates that roughly 1,100 to 1,200 people lived in the borough when the fire began.
By 2010, the census counted 10 residents. The latest estimate is four, a figure that has held steady in recent years. The most striking thing about Centralia is how little remains above ground. Roads still trace parts of the old street grid, but many of the homes they once served are gone.
2. Adak, Alaska
Adak sits far out in the Aleutian Islands, where the U.S. Navy maintained a base until 1997. During the military era, the community had a movie theater, a ski area, and fast-food restaurants. After the base closed, the population fell from 4,633 in 1990 to 316 a decade later.
Adak still had 326 residents in 2010. The latest federal estimate is 112, up slightly from its recent low. Rows of former military housing show how much larger the settlement once was. Today, the city has to maintain services for a fraction of the population that infrastructure was built to serve.
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3. Cairo, Illinois
Cairo occupies the southern tip of Illinois, where the Ohio River meets the Mississippi. The two rivers gave the city a strategic position, but its location alone couldn’t sustain the population. The city went from 2,831 residents in 2010 to an estimated 1,515, a loss of nearly half.
One episode helps explain the speed of the decline. When the Elmwood and McBride public housing complexes were slated for closure, hundreds of residents faced relocation. With limited replacement housing in Cairo, some families had to look outside the city. Here, leaving could begin with the loss of an apartment rather than a decision to start over somewhere else.
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4. Tangier, Virginia
Crab boats still work the waters around Tangier, a low-lying Chesapeake Bay island reachable by boat or small aircraft. Erosion and rising water threaten the land on which its homes, docks, and roads sit. Much of the island’s historical land area has already disappeared.
The town went from 727 residents in 2010 to an estimated 442. It has gained a few residents since its recent low, even as the shoreline continues to erode. Tangier’s story unfolds on two different timelines. A small population rebound can happen in the same years that the island loses more ground.
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5. Princeville, North Carolina
Founded by formerly enslaved people and incorporated in 1885, Princeville has a history closely tied to the land along the Tar River. It also has a long history of flooding. Hurricane Floyd inundated the town in 1999, and Hurricane Matthew brought another devastating flood in 2016.
Princeville had 2,082 residents in 2010. The latest estimate is 1,286, modestly above its early-decade low. Recovery has included plans for development on higher ground. For families with deep roots here, the decision can be more complicated than whether to rebuild a house. It also involves how to preserve a community that generations worked to establish.
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6. Fair Bluff, North Carolina
Hurricane Matthew flooded Fair Bluff in 2016. Hurricane Florence followed in 2018, sending water back into the Lumber River town before it had fully recovered. With the old commercial district badly damaged, Fair Bluff built an Uptown business center away from the riverfront. It opened in 2024 with space for 16 businesses.
The population fell from 951 in 2010 to an estimated 737, although it has been climbing gradually in recent estimates. Fair Bluff’s old downtown and new commercial center show two stages of the same story. One records what the floods took away. The other shows where local businesses can reopen.
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7. Helena–West Helena, Arkansas
Helena and West Helena consolidated into one city before the 2010 census, when the combined municipality counted 12,282 residents. Its latest estimate is 8,216. The population has declined in each year of the latest federal estimate series.
Yet there’s a part of downtown where the city’s identity still goes out over the airwaves. The Delta Cultural Center hosts King Biscuit Time, a blues radio program rooted in Helena’s musical history. A place that has lost roughly a third of its residents since 2010 still has a sound listeners recognize well beyond Arkansas.
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8. Braddock, Pennsylvania
In Braddock, the Edgar Thomson steelworks still occupies the Monongahela riverfront. The borough around it has grown smaller, from 2,159 residents in 2010 to an estimated 1,647. The mill’s presence makes Braddock an unusual example of industrial decline. You can still see the industry that shaped the town while walking streets built for a much larger community.
One of those streets leads to the Braddock Carnegie Library. The historic building reopened after a renovation, giving residents a gathering place in a borough where many older buildings have lost their original uses.
9. Tucumcari, New Mexico
After dark, the neon at the Blue Swallow Motel still lights up a stretch of old Route 66. Travelers come for the vintage motel signs, painted murals, and roadside architecture. The historic strip has a distinct identity even though much of the through traffic now travels on Interstate 40.
Tucumcari’s population slipped from 5,363 in 2010 to an estimated 5,082. That’s a gentler decline than most on this list. It also reveals a difference between visitors and residents. A town can remain a favorite overnight stop while the number of people who live there year-round gradually falls.
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10. Millinocket, Maine
Great Northern Paper once anchored Millinocket’s economy. After the company’s local mill closed in 2008, the town was left with a large industrial site and the question of what could take its place. The population went from 4,506 in 2010 to an estimated 4,095. Recent estimates have stayed close to 4,100.
The former mill property is now the focus of cleanup and redevelopment. Meanwhile, Millinocket serves visitors heading toward Katahdin and Baxter State Park. The old economy revolved around what the town made. Part of its newer economy revolves around the landscape people come to explore.
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11. Selma, Alabama
Millions know Selma through images of the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the 1965 voting rights marches. The city behind that landmark has shrunk from 20,756 residents in 2010 to an estimated 16,077.
The decline was underway long before a tornado struck in January 2023. The storm damaged homes and businesses, and some residents moved to nearby communities in its aftermath. For a city already getting smaller, the practical question after the tornado was whether families could find somewhere to live while their homes were being repaired.
12. Clarksdale, Mississippi
Clarksdale’s Delta Blues Museum preserves part of the cabin where Muddy Waters lived while working on Stovall Farms. The exhibit connects the city’s best-known export to the agricultural world in which it took shape.
Clarksdale had 17,962 residents in 2010 and an estimated 13,643 in the latest figures. The city has lost nearly a quarter of its population over that span, even as blues fans continue to make the trip. On a music weekend, visitors can fill the venues and walk the same downtown streets that have fewer people living nearby year-round.
13. Miami, Arizona
This Miami lies in Arizona’s copper country. Its old commercial blocks and the Bullion Plaza Museum tell the story of a town that grew around mining. Copper activity remains part of the area’s economy, even as the population within Miami’s town limits has fallen.
The town went from 1,837 residents in 2010 to an estimated 1,514. Most of that decline occurred before 2020. Parts of the old downtown have been renovated, so visitors can see the original scale of the boomtown alongside the smaller community that uses those buildings today.
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14. Ogdensburg, New York
Across the St. Lawrence River from Canada, Ogdensburg has a waterfront and an unusual redevelopment problem. The state closed the Ogdensburg Correctional Facility in March 2022, leaving a former prison campus whose future local officials and lawmakers have continued to debate.
The city fell from 11,128 residents in 2010 to an estimated 9,123. The prison closure came after the decline had already begun. It also complicates how to read the figures. When a correctional facility closes, the city can lose both jobs and people who were counted as residents at the institution.
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15. East St. Louis, Illinois
From East St. Louis, you can look across the Mississippi and see the Gateway Arch. The Illinois city once had more than 82,000 residents, supported by railroads, warehouses, and other industries. The retreat of that industrial economy helped drive a long population decline.
Even the more recent figures show a sharp change. East St. Louis went from 27,006 residents in 2010 to an estimated 17,682. From the overlook at Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park, the two sides of the river are visibly close. Their different population histories show how much can change within one metro area.
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16. Johnstown, Pennsylvania
Johnstown is best known for the 1889 flood, when the South Fork Dam failed and water tore through the Conemaugh Valley. The city rebuilt and remained an industrial center. The later decline of steel and coal took away jobs that had sustained families for generations.
The population fell from 20,978 in 2010 to an estimated 17,654. The flood explains why Johnstown is famous. The contraction of its industrial economy goes further toward explaining why the city is smaller today.
17. Benton Harbor, Michigan
Benton Harbor went from 10,038 residents in 2010 to an estimated 8,803. One recent chapter was a drinking-water crisis that brought years of testing and a major pipe replacement effort. Federal regulators reported that all lead service lines had been replaced by the time they ended their emergency order in 2023.
Walk through the Arts District and you’ll encounter another side of the city, with galleries and events that draw people downtown. Those two stories ran alongside each other. Residents were working to fix a basic public service while local artists and businesses were giving people more reasons to spend time in the city center.
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18. Cawker City, Kansas
In 1953, a Kansas farmer named Frank Stoeber began winding leftover sisal twine into a ball. The ball eventually moved into town, where visitors can see it year-round and add to it during an annual twine-a-thon.
Cawker City counted 469 residents in 2010 and has an estimated 444 today. It’s the mildest decline on this list, but the town offers perhaps its most unusual contrast. The attraction keeps growing because people stop and add something to it. The number of people who stay has quietly gone the other way.histories