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The 30 Largest US Cities With One or No Listed Birth Facility, 2026

Roughly 5.8 million Americans live in a big city — 100,000 people or more — with at most one birth center or maternity unit listed inside the city limits. For families, it usually means a drive to a neighboring city. For midwives and birth-center founders, it's the clearest map of where the next birth center could serve the most people. Cleveland, Ohio (365,379 residents) tops the list.

This is directory data — counts of listed facilities inside city limits — not clinical guidance, and not a statement about the quality of maternity care anywhere. Many of these cities sit minutes from well-served neighbors.

30
cities of 100k+ with ≤1 listed facility
7
of them have zero in city limits
5.8M
combined residents

The full list, largest first

#CityPopulationListed facilities in city limitsNearby options
1 Cleveland, OH 365,379 1 Cleveland directory
2 Jersey City, NJ 302,824 1 Jersey City directory
3 North Las Vegas, NV 294,034 1 North Las Vegas directory
4 Garland, TX 250,431 0 Texas directory
5 Cape Coral, FL 233,025 1 Cape Coral directory
6 Fremont, CA 228,192 0 California directory
7 Fontana, CA 218,455 1 Fontana directory
8 Yonkers, NY 211,040 0 New York directory
9 Grand Prairie, TX 207,331 1 Grand Prairie directory
10 Augusta, GA 206,303 1 Augusta directory
11 Peoria, AZ 199,924 1 Peoria directory
12 Montgomery, AL 195,818 1 Montgomery directory
13 Huntington Beach, CA 193,151 1 Huntington Beach directory
14 Ontario, CA 185,285 1 Ontario directory
15 Elk Grove, CA 182,797 1 Elk Grove directory
16 Pembroke Pines, FL 179,326 1 Pembroke Pines directory
17 Surprise, AZ 167,564 1 Surprise directory
18 Palmdale, CA 162,536 0 California directory
19 Killeen, TX 160,616 1 Killeen directory
20 Hayward, CA 158,440 1 Hayward directory
21 Bellevue, WA 154,377 1 Bellevue directory
22 Mesquite, TX 150,140 1 Mesquite directory
23 Pasadena, TX 149,617 1 Pasadena directory
24 Olathe, KS 149,035 1 Olathe directory
25 Pomona, CA 147,966 1 Pomona directory
26 Miramar, FL 143,242 0 Florida directory
27 Palm Bay, FL 142,023 0 Florida directory
28 Jackson, MS 141,449 1 Jackson directory
29 Coral Springs, FL 140,808 1 Coral Springs directory
30 Pasadena, CA 137,195 0 California directory

"In city limits" is doing real work here: many of these are large suburbs whose residents use facilities in the city next door. The "nearby options" links show what's listed in and around each one.

Live in one of these cities?

You almost certainly have options nearby — birth centers routinely serve families from surrounding cities. Start from your state's directory and check the cities around you, or browse freestanding birth centers and water-birth facilities statewide. And as always: what's right for your pregnancy is a decision for you and your provider.

Cite this data

Journalists, researchers, and bloggers: this dataset is free to cite with attribution and a link.

"Cleveland, Ohio is the biggest US city with at most one birth facility listed inside city limits, per findbirthingcenters.com, 2026." Source: findbirthingcenters.com.

Download the CSV — underserved cities

Dataset updated July 15, 2026. Refreshed with each quarterly re-crawl of the directory. Questions or the full dataset: hello@findbirthingcenters.com.

Methodology

City universe: every US incorporated place (including consolidated city-counties) with a 2024 Census population estimate of 100,000 or more — census townships and towns that aren't incorporated cities are excluded, because listings don't use those names. Facility counts: birth centers and hospital labor & delivery units in our continuously maintained national directory whose listed address city matches the incorporated city (punctuation-insensitive, with consolidated-city names normalized — e.g. Nashville-Davidson counts as Nashville). Counts are city-limits only and say nothing about hospital obstetric care generally or facilities in adjacent cities. Directory data, not clinical guidance.

More data: all birth center stats · the Birth Center Access Map · the best-served cities.