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Which Cities In The US Are The Best For Pizza? Here's A Map Of The Top 50, Ranked

If you want to live somewhere with plentiful pizza options at affordable prices, this data viz has everything you need. Bon appetit.

2 years ago · 3.4k reads ·

New York City, Detroit, New Haven, Cleveland — a lot of places try to lay claim to the honor of having the "best pizza." So, who's right?

Matt Brannon at Anytime Estimate gathered data from Google Trends, publicly available US business data, Thrillist, Pizza Today and many more sources to score the 50 largest US metro areas on how ideal they are for pizza lovers.

Quick findings:

Detroit was found to be the best city in the US for pizza, with the most independent restaurants per capita (six for every 100,000 residents).
Pittsburgh, however, has 15.2 pizza restaurants per 100,000 residents, which is the most of any metro area in the US. (The average is eight pizza restaurants for every 100,000 residents.)
Ohio came out on top as the best state for pizza: three of its cities — Cleveland (ranked #2), Columbus (#3) and Cincinnati (#19) — fell in the top half of the rankings.
St. Louis has the most affordable cheese pizza (23 percent cheaper than the national average), and Salt Lake City has the most affordable pepperoni pizza (24 percent cheaper than the national average).
Seattle has the highest search interest in wood-fired pizza, and Raleigh has the highest search interest in pan pizza.
Almost every city in the top 15 is east of the Mississippi River, and most are north of the Mason-Dixon line, suggesting that the south and west aren't ideal for pizza.

Methodology:

Here are the criteria that Anytime Estimate used to rank the metro areas, and how much they were weighted in the ranking calculations:

Google Trends interest in 20 pizza variations (5x)
Pizza restaurants per 100,000 residents (3x)
Pizza restaurants per square mile (2x)
Google Trends interest in general pizza terms (2x)
Independent pizza restaurants per 100,000 residents (1x)
Big chain pizza restaurants per 100,000 residents (1x)
Average price and affordability of cheese pizza (1x)
Average price and affordability of pepperoni pizza (1x)

Read more about the 50 metro areas' specific stats and pizza qualifications at Anytime Estimate.

Comments

Alex Sordo 2 years ago

I've been all over the world and have tasted some amazing pizzas. But nothing is like New Haven pizza. If you haven't had pizza from Sally's, Pepe's or Modern, you don't know what you're missing.
Leah Vargas 2 years ago

There is literally only ONE good pizza place in Providence and the fact that NYC isn't even within the top 10 is just wild. That said, I'm a Boston native and we have a fantastic range of pizza, so I won't complain about our high placement.

But still. Get Providence off this list and bump up NY. Thats just asinine.
Glenn Zorpette 2 years ago

Any list of "great pizza cities" that leaves out New Haven, Conn. suffers an immediate and fatal loss of credibility. I spent the first 20 years of my life eating pizza all over Connecticut and other New England states. I've also had pizza in many other cities, including Naples, Palermo, Barcelona, Chicago, Manhattan, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Providence, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and Honolulu. I've had good pizza in all of those places (well, Honolulu, not so much). But none had New Haven's intensity and variety of great pizza per square kilometer.
1. Molly Bradley 2 years ago
  
  agree that new haven should be prominent on this list!! though not sure it's considered a major metropolitan area, so that's probably why it wasn't assessed for rankings.
  
  however: new haven pizza better than pizza in italy/sicily????? now you're just trolling 😂
2. Adwait 2 years ago
  
  How much is New Haven paying you for this comment?
RM Ludemann 2 years ago

Not having New haven on the list.. poor research
caleb oberst 2 years ago

...so because a city is searching for TWENTY pizza variations they rise to the top? any method rewarding BBQ sauce on pizza is fundamentally flawed
Tim Newman 2 years ago

To not have Chicago as # 1 is a travesty. Especially in the Deep Dish category.
John Amick 2 years ago

In all honesty, any pizza ranking that doesn't have NYC as #1 simply cannot be taken seriously. End of story.
Bill OKonski 2 years ago

Your process is flawed.. While not my fave, Old Forge Pizza located in Old Forge, Pennsylvania probably has more pizza shops per capita, and more pizza shops in close proximity than most larger cities
Richard Palmer 2 years ago

In addition having Atlanta on here as a city for pizza is well...just wrong. The reason people Google pizza in Atlanta is because there is very little actual good pizza in Atlanta. It's bland or watery or the cheese is barely melted or the crust is lousy, etc, etc. I could go on for hours on why most Atlanta pizza is junk. It's like the restaurants don't even try. There are a few good spots, but they are few and far between. Just drop Atlanta off this list, K? It doesn't belong here. Full stop.
Matt 2 years ago

Okay, as a person who grew up in Chicago, the way this question was answered is completely wrong. Interest and amount of pizza is different from quality. Chicago style isn’t even considered pizza by New Yorkers, but it’s considered the best by Chicagoans, and it’s a much harder of a style to find outside of Chicago. Do I like west coast style and east coast style, sure. But it is much easier to find and most locations that provide it are of low quality like Pizza Hut.
1. Molly Bradley 2 years ago
  
  now what on earth is "west coast style" pizza?? i pray to god they don't put avocado on it