What is the most isolated metropolitan area of the contiguous U.S.?

[retromike22]

I think it's Seattle and Portland. They're just so distant from the closest comparable metro (the Bay Area of California or Salt Lake City.) They created a new genre of music (grunge) and seem to have a unique "Pacific Northwest" identity. Politically, they probably have more in common with British Colombia than with any other American region. I would rank Salt Lake City as second. Denver could also be an option, but it has a bunch of new residents from other areas, and seems to be a frequent flyover area. Any others?

[Del Tachi]

South Texas (i.e., Harlingen/Brownsville) seems pretty well isolated.  Basically an extension of Mexico.  Closest metros from South Texas are Corpus Christi and San Antonio, which are really different animals politically and culturally.   

[cinyc]

Define isolated - and perhaps even metro area.  

Seattle and Portland have each other, plus the nearby Yakima, Spokane, Bellingham, Salem, etc. metropolitan areas.  Some of those even border the Seattle and Portland metros.  Salt Lake City is in a separate metro area from the bordering Provo-Orem and Ogden-Clearfield metros - and is part of a string of contiguous metro areas that string along the I-15 corridor from Provo-Orem to Pocatello, Idaho.

I think the answer will be something in the relatively empty middle of the country like Rapid City, SD, Bismarck, ND or Billings, MT, which don't border other metropolitan areas and are over a hundred miles as the crow flies (and longer by road) from the next closest metro - Bismarck and Rapid City, for each other, and Great Falls, MT, in the case of Billings.  Or maybe Boise, ID, which seems pretty far from other metros, too.

[Хahar 🤔]

Seattle and Portland don't constitute a metropolitan area.

[retromike22]

Seattle and Portland don't constitute a metropolitan area.

I know. What I meant was, those are my two choices.

[DINGO Joe]

El Paso is pretty much out there by itself, unless you pair it with Juarez.

[cinyc]

El Paso is pretty much out there by itself, unless you pair it with Juarez.

Again, it depends how you define "isolated" and "metro area".  The El Paso metro area borders the Las Cruces, NM metro area.  Taken together, the two metro areas are fairly isolated, though - but probably not as isolated as Rapid City, Bismarck, Billings or Boise because the Las Cruces metro's northern border is pretty far north to make it closer to the southern border of the Albuquerque metro than those cities' metros are to their closest metros.

[ElectionsGuy]

Overall it looks like the Denver, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, and Boise areas are the most isolated. Besides Portland and Seattle.

[RedSLC]

El Paso and Las Cruces have their own MSA's, but have the same CSA. In terms of most isolated primary statistical areas, it would probably be the El Paso-Las Cruces CSA (including the part in Mexico).



In terms of just MSA's, it looks like Rapid City, SD is pretty isolated.

[Hatman 🍁]

Um, Seattle's right next to Vancouver pretty much. Vancouver is smaller I think, but not by much.

[Adam Griffin]

Denver, Salt Lake City

[RedSLC]

Denver, Salt Lake City

Technically speaking both of those MSA's are close enough to other smaller MSA's to form a CSA (Boulder and Greeley for Denver, and Ogden/Clearfield and Provo/Orem for SLC). Even if you only count the CSA's, both of them are still fairly close to other MSA's that are not part of the CSA (Fort Collins and Colorado Springs for Denver, Logan for SLC).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Rapid City is basically the objective answer. It's over four hours from Sioux Falls, the nearest metro.

[muon2]

Rapid City is basically the objective answer. It's over four hours from Sioux Falls, the nearest metro.

The nearest metro area by the Census to Rapid City is Casper, WY. It's 176 mi straight line and 253 mi by car.

Billings, MT could also be in the running. It's nearest metro is Great Falls at 178 mi straight line, 218 mi by car. So the choice of measure would matter in determining isolation. But if straight line measure is used, Bismarck, ND is more isolated. It's is 189 mi by line to Fargo, but it's only 196 mi by car.

However, I think Boise wins. It is 196.2 mi by line from Lewiston (267 mi by car), and 196.8 mi by line from Pocatello (235 by car). Boise's closer by car than Rapid City to its nearest metro, but the straight line distances are longer than the car drive is shorter.

[cinyc]

Rapid City is basically the objective answer. It's over four hours from Sioux Falls, the nearest metro.

The nearest metro area by the Census to Rapid City is Casper, WY. It's 176 mi straight line and 253 mi by car.

If you measure from edge of metro to edge of metro, I think Rapid City is closer to Bismarck by straight line than it is to Casper.  That's because the Bismarck metro goes pretty far south and west from Bismarck proper in Morton County, while the Rapid City metro goes pretty far north and east from Rapid City proper in Meade County.  I get about a 98 mile distance from the NE corner of Meade County to the S corner of Morton County.  

Metro center to Metro center distances make Casper closest.

[old timey villain]

There's many ways you could answer this

If you were talking about any metro area being furthest away from any other metro (meaning everything around it is nothing) probably some tiny metro in the mountain west.

Although you could also look at metro areas that are furthest away from another metro of similar size and influence. For this I would point to Atlanta (I feel like I'm always looking for an excuse to bring ATL into the discussion). But in this respect it's pretty isolated. The south is pretty well populated but the metro areas that are close by are so much smaller. To find a metro area that is of similar size you'd either have to travel 9 hours to DC, 9 hours to Miami or 11 hours to Houston.

Of course Atlanta's isolation is a big factor in its growth, since it makes it the most important hub for the southeast.

[Ban my account ffs!]

The Twin Cities, Denver, Portland, and Seattle all kind of ring "No Man's Land" which is the inland Northwest (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, western Dakotas)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's pretty silly to measure "isolated" by straight line distances or the edge of metro counties (I'm confident I'm the only one here who's been to western and southern Morton County. It's remote even by North Dakota's standards, and seeing it and thinking this is technically metropolitan is kind of funny, especially considering the abundance of ghost towns in that region.) In addition I'd argue that driving time matters more than distance. That's why I'm adamant it's not Bismarck, because getting to Fargo is incredibly easy albeit boring, you can do the drive in under three hours.

So let's take a look at some of the other candidates. Rapid City is just under four hours to Casper, WY. Billings is about three and a half hours to Great Falls. From Boise to Pocatello, ID, the next nearest metro is slightly less. So based on that criteria Rapid City is the winner.

You could however based on other criteria make a pretty solid case for Great Falls. At least Boise, Billings and Rapid City sit on major transit routes and someone like a truck driver in the region is likely to pass through them often. Great Falls on the other hand sits near an Interstate but in an area where it's unlikely to be used, the only people I'd see passing through Great Falls if they weren't specifically visiting there would be people either traveling to Alberta or Albertans entering the US. So Great Falls is also a pretty reasonable pick.

[The Free North]

Doesnt directly answer the OP, but Honolulu is the most isolated 1,000,000+ metro in the world, and by some margin too

[cinyc]

Doesnt directly answer the OP, but Honolulu is the most isolated 1,000,000+ metro in the world, and by some margin too

The Urban Honolulu Metropolitan Area (a.k.a. Honolulu County) has a population of just over 975,000 - not quite 1,000,000 - yet.