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The best US cities for running trails

There are two honest ways to answer "which city is best for trail running", and they give different answers. The first is raw count — how many distinct running trails, greenways and rail-trails a city actually has, which is what matters if you live there and want variety for years. The second is trails per 100,000 residents, which is what matters if you want to be able to run without driving, and which rewards mid-size cities that quietly built out a greenway network. Both lists are below. For reference, the national rate is about 8.94 trails per 100,000 residents.

Most running trails, by count

Houston, TX tops the country with 51 trails in the directory. Big cities dominate this list by construction — but the gap between similarly sized cities is the interesting part, and it usually comes down to whether the region committed to a greenway or rail-trail network.

#CityTrailsPopulationPer 100k
1 Houston, TX Texas 51 2,390,125 2.1
2 Dallas, TX Texas 50 1,326,087 3.8
3 Pittsburgh, PA Pennsylvania 50 307,668 16.3
4 Kansas City, MO Missouri 46 516,032 8.9
5 Chicago, IL Illinois 45 2,721,308 1.7
6 St. Louis, MO Missouri 45 279,695 16.1
7 Austin, TX Texas 44 993,588 4.4
8 Atlanta, GA Georgia 43 520,070 8.3
9 Los Angeles, CA California 43 3,878,704 1.1
10 Miami, FL Florida 42 487,014 8.6
11 Louisville, KY Kentucky 41 — —
12 Salt Lake City, UT Utah 40 217,783 18.4
13 Cincinnati, OH Ohio 39 314,915 12.4
14 Philadelphia, PA Pennsylvania 39 1,573,916 2.5
15 Phoenix, AZ Arizona 39 1,673,164 2.3
16 San Antonio, TX Texas 39 1,526,656 2.6
17 El Paso, TX Texas 37 681,723 5.4
18 Fort Worth, TX Texas 37 1,008,106 3.7
19 San Diego, CA California 35 1,404,452 2.5
20 Las Vegas, NV Nevada 33 678,922 4.9
21 San Jose, CA California 33 997,368 3.3
22 Tucson, AZ Arizona 33 554,013 6
23 Seattle, WA Washington 32 780,995 4.1
24 Birmingham, AL Alabama 31 196,357 15.8
25 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 31 428,579 7.2
26 Rochester, NY New York 31 207,282 15
27 Albuquerque, NM New Mexico 30 560,326 5.4
28 Charlotte, NC North Carolina 30 943,476 3.2
29 Columbus, OH Ohio 30 933,263 3.2
30 Oklahoma City, OK Oklahoma 30 712,919 4.2
31 Colorado Springs, CO Colorado 29 493,554 5.9
32 Denver, CO Colorado 29 729,019 4
33 Fremont, CA California 29 228,192 12.7
34 Portland, OR Oregon 29 635,749 4.6
35 Green Bay, WI Wisconsin 28 106,311 26.3
36 Indianapolis, IN Indiana 28 900,896 3.1
37 Jacksonville, FL Florida 28 1,009,833 2.8
38 Knoxville, TN Tennessee 28 198,722 14.1
39 Ann Arbor, MI Michigan 27 122,925 22
40 Chattanooga, TN Tennessee 26 191,496 13.6

Most running trails per resident

Draper, UT leads at 41.9 trails per 100,000 residents. This is the list that predicts whether you can run somewhere good from your front door. To keep it meaningful we only rank cities with at least 50,000 residents and at least five trails — otherwise a small town with a big park system wins every time on a sample of two.

#CityTrailsPopulationPer 100k
1 Draper, UT Utah 21 50,166 41.9
2 Olympia, WA Washington 23 56,271 40.9
3 La Crosse, WI Wisconsin 20 51,049 39.2
4 Marietta, GA Georgia 23 63,122 36.4
5 Novato, CA California 19 52,311 36.3
6 Manhattan, KS Kansas 19 54,700 34.7
7 Chapel Hill, NC North Carolina 22 64,028 34.4
8 Glendora, CA California 17 50,101 33.9
9 Bothell, WA Washington 17 51,770 32.8
10 Kalamazoo, MI Michigan 24 73,290 32.7
11 Pocatello, ID Idaho 19 58,231 32.6
12 Twin Falls, ID Idaho 18 55,589 32.4
13 Cupertino, CA California 19 58,710 32.4
14 Bentonville, AR Arkansas 20 61,791 32.4
15 Corvallis, OR Oregon 20 61,993 32.3
16 Dubuque, IA Iowa 19 58,987 32.2
17 San Rafael, CA California 19 59,961 31.7
18 Fort Pierce, FL Florida 16 50,805 31.5
19 Sarasota, FL Florida 18 57,764 31.2
20 Bozeman, MT Montana 18 57,894 31.1
21 Greenville, SC South Carolina 23 74,371 30.9
22 Santa Cruz, CA California 19 62,581 30.4
23 Summerville, SC South Carolina 16 52,625 30.4
24 Harrisburg, PA Pennsylvania 15 50,649 29.6
25 Ypsilanti, MI Michigan 16 54,760 29.2
26 Santee, CA California 17 59,104 28.8
27 Battle Creek, MI Michigan 15 52,205 28.7
28 St. Charles, IL Illinois 15 52,511 28.6
29 Eden Prairie, MN Minnesota 18 62,905 28.6
30 Wake Forest, NC North Carolina 16 56,764 28.2
31 Logan, UT Utah 16 56,770 28.2
32 Richland, WA Washington 18 64,372 28
33 Coeur d'Alene, ID Idaho 16 57,355 27.9
34 Springfield, OH Ohio 16 58,138 27.5
35 Rapid City, SD South Dakota 22 79,894 27.5
36 Grapevine, TX Texas 14 51,320 27.3
37 Duluth, MN Minnesota 24 87,986 27.3
38 Portland, ME Maine 19 69,568 27.3
39 Loveland, CO Colorado 22 81,102 27.1
40 Ocala, FL Florida 19 70,251 27

How this is counted

A "trail" here is one catalogued listing with proven runnable paths — a greenway, rail-trail, park trail system, riverwalk or singletrack loop. Counts are by the city the trail sits in, which means a metro area's trails are split across its suburbs rather than pooled: a city ranking is not a metro ranking, and a runner in a big metro has more than the city row alone suggests.

Populations are US Census estimates for the incorporated place. Because city limits are drawn very differently from state to state, the per-capita list rewards cities whose boundaries include their park land and penalises tightly drawn ones — read it as a strong signal, not a verdict.

Nothing on this page is paid or sponsored, and no city can submit itself.

Want the state-level numbers? The State of Running Trails in America ranks every state and offers the full CSV, and the surface report covers what those trails are actually made of.