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America's Most Underserved Cities for Floating (2026)

The flip side of the Float Capitals: big American cities where you can barely find a tank inside the city limits. These are the 30 most populous US cities (200,000+ residents) with zero or one float center in our 586-center national directory — 21.8 million people between them. If you've ever thought about opening a float center, this is the market-gap list. Updated 2026-07-25.

The list

Top of the table: Los Angeles, California — 3,878,704 people, a single float center. The biggest city with none at all is Phoenix, Arizona (1,673,164 residents — 16 of the 30 cities are at zero). Many are large suburbs inside major metros, which is exactly the point: the anchor city's centers are a drive away, and the local walk-in market is wide open.

#CityPopulationFloat centers in directory
1 Los Angeles, CA 3,878,704 1
2 Phoenix, AZ 1,673,164 0
3 Philadelphia, PA 1,573,916 1
4 Jacksonville, FL 1,009,833 1
5 San Jose, CA 997,368 0
6 Charlotte, NC 943,476 1
7 San Francisco, CA 827,526 0
8 Oklahoma City, OK 712,919 0
9 Boston, MA 673,458 0
10 Detroit, MI 645,705 0
11 Baltimore, MD 568,271 0
12 Milwaukee, WI 563,531 1
13 Fresno, CA 550,105 1
14 Atlanta, GA 520,070 0
15 Mesa, AZ 517,151 0
16 Colorado Springs, CO 493,554 1
17 Omaha, NE 489,265 1
18 Long Beach, CA 450,901 0
19 Oakland, CA 443,554 1
20 Minneapolis, MN 428,579 1
21 Bakersfield, CA 417,468 1
22 Tulsa, OK 415,154 0
23 Tampa, FL 414,547 1
24 Arlington, TX 403,672 0
25 Aurora, CO 403,130 0
26 Wichita, KS 400,991 1
27 Cleveland, OH 365,379 0
28 New Orleans, LA 362,701 1
29 Honolulu, HI 344,967 0
30 Anaheim, CA 344,561 0

Read it fairly: counts are within city limits. A resident of one of these cities may well drive to a neighboring town to float. "Underserved" here means no local center — not that no one nearby has ever floated.

Cite this data

Suggested attribution: "America's Most Underserved Cities for Floating" — FloatSpaFinder.com, 2026, linked to https://www.floatspafinder.com/float-stats/underserved/. The table is CC BY 4.0 — chart it, quote it, publish it — just link back. Want a custom cut? Email us.

Download the full CSV Data updated 2026-07-25

Methodology: center counts from our continuously maintained national directory of 586 float centers (public business listings, filtered by a strict two-source evidence gate to genuine float / sensory-deprivation centers). City universe = incorporated places and consolidated city-governments with 200,000+ residents, US Census 2024 estimates; census names normalized to everyday names (Nashville-Davidson → Nashville) so no city is falsely flagged. Centers are matched to cities by the city name on their address. Refreshed with each re-crawl — a city graduates off this list the moment a center opens. Browse what nearby markets look like instead: centers by state, or the full stats hub.