What is in this file
One row per state, plus DC and Puerto Rico where available. The rank universe is 50 states; reference rows have an empty rank. The file is sorted by descending value with reference jurisdictions after the states.
- Period
- 2026 boundaries
- Release
- 2026-09-08
- Updated
- 2026-10-23
- Producer
- U.S. Census Bureau
- Source
- Gazetteer files, 2026 · 2026_Gaz_state_national ALAND + AWATER
- Units
- Square miles
- Cadence
- Annual
Quick validation snapshot
Alaska has the highest estimate (665,725 sq mi); Rhode Island has the lowest (1,545 sq mi). The 50 states cover 3,802,715 square miles of land and water. These are useful checks when importing the CSV into a spreadsheet. Reference jurisdictions may lie outside the 50-state range, so exclude rows marked reference when reproducing the default state ranks.
Areas are calculated from the Census Bureau’s boundary files; no margin of error applies.
Calculation and reproducibility
(ALAND + AWATER, square meters) / 2,589,988.110336.
Immutable edition 2026-10-23 CSV · Full edition registry, including available histories
Column definitions
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| rank | 1 + the number of states with a higher source value; empty for reference rows. |
| jurisdiction | State name or labeled reference jurisdiction. |
| value | Numeric estimate, using the source’s available precision. |
| unit | Square miles |
| moe_90 | Published 90% margin of error in the same units; empty when not published. |
| reference | True if excluded from the default 50-state ranking. |
| period | Reference period of the observation. |
| release | Date of the source release. |
| source | Producer and table/file identifier. |
| source_url | Producer file or source documentation; microdata rows link to the specific state input ZIP. |
Limits and reuse
States bordering the Great Lakes or the ocean have large water areas, so total and land rankings differ: Michigan, for example, is about 40 percent water.
This is an independent arrangement of federal statistical data. Cite the named producer for the original observations and Rank the States for computed ranks. Downloading or embedding does not imply government endorsement. Source files are archived with a checksum for reproducibility.
SHA-256: 54352ca34f869b4deca03a65da72cccb8e9f0c2702340061949b63c76c63f852
Citation
Rank the States. Total area, 2026 boundaries. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Gazetteer files, 2026, 2026_Gaz_state_national ALAND + AWATER; released 2026-09-08. Edition 2026-10-23. https://rankthestates.com/data/editions/2026-10-23/total-area.csv