How it works
This random city in Mississippi picker draws from all 299 cities, towns and villages in the Census Bureau's 2025 estimates. Just over half have under 1,000 people, so a small town comes up as often as not.
Read the full guide
All 82 counties, 15 of them with one town
Every county has a city or town, and 15 have only one, such as Natchez in Adams County and Vicksburg in Warren County. The County list holds 80. Issaquena and Benton Counties, whose largest towns are the smallest, are left off it; their towns still come up in a draw from every county.
Towns that sit on a county line
Seventeen places have people in more than one county. Nettleton, Crowder and State Line are split close to half and half, and each card says mostly in the county with the larger share. Hattiesburg is mostly in Forrest County, with about one in seven of its people in Lamar County.
- Natchez, incorporated in 1803, is the oldest municipality in Mississippi.
- Gluckstadt, in Madison County, has been a city only since June 2021.
- Quitman is in Clarke County, not Quitman County, and Prentiss is in Jefferson Davis County, not Prentiss County.
Questions and answers
How many cities are in Mississippi?
Mississippi has 299 municipalities, all of them on the cards. The Census Bureau's file names 113 of them cities, 167 towns and 19 villages. Only Jackson has 100,000 people or more.
What is the difference between a city and a town in Mississippi?
Population. The Secretary of State's Blue Book gives the rule: more than 2,000 people is a city, 301 to 2,000 a town and 100 to 300 a village. The Census file's names can lag: Port Gibson, a city there, has 1,155 people.
What county is Jackson, Mississippi in?
Hinds County, where all but 496 of its 141,196 people live; the rest are in Madison and Rankin Counties. Jackson is not in Jackson County, whose largest city is Pascagoula.
What is the smallest town in Mississippi?
Satartia, a village in Yazoo County, with 38 people in the 2025 estimates. Learned in Hinds County has 54, and Doddsville, Gattman and Sylvarena have 85 each.
What are the largest cities in Mississippi?
Jackson, the capital, then Gulfport with 76,506 people, Southaven with 57,819, Hattiesburg with 48,802 and Biloxi with 48,516.