The Emptiest Place in Every State — Even New Jersey Has One

Seen from space at night, a dark band runs through the middle of the United States, from Montana down to West Texas. This documentary looks for the emptiest place in every U.S. state, measured county by county against the 2020 Census, and asks why so few people live there. The route runs from crowded to empty. It starts in New Jersey, the most densely populated state, where even the emptiest county is twice as crowded as the country as a whole. From there it moves through the Adirondacks, the Deep South, the Great Plains, the Rockies, Alaska and Hawaii, following a number that falls so far that people per square mile has to become square miles per person. Along the way: Why the band is dark: John Wesley Powell's line of 20 inches of rain, Plains counties that mostly peaked between 1910 and 1930, and the Census Bureau's 1890 test for the frontier. The stories behind the numbers: a corner of Minnesota you can drive to only through Canada, an Oklahoma town bombed by mistake by an American B-17 in 1943, and three states whose emptiest counties are named after the same president. Kalawao County, Hawaii, home to the Kalaupapa settlement and 82 people, which a 2026 state law will fold into Maui County a year after its last patient resident dies. It ends in Loving County, Texas: 64 people at the last census, on land twice the size of New York City. It counted three residents in 1890, was first organized in what the Handbook of Texas calls an apparent scheme to defraud, and now sits in the oil field behind America's record production. This channel makes documentaries about how the physical world works, told through maps, measurements and the scientific record. Sources used: U.S. Census Bureau, QuickFacts: Loving County, Texas — https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/lov... U.S. Census Bureau, QuickFacts: Kalawao County, Hawaii — https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/kal... U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Population Density Data 1910-2020 — https://www.census.gov/data/tables/ti... U.S. Census Bureau, Following the Frontier Line, 1790 to 1890 — https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visual... NASA Earth Observatory (2012), Night Lights 2012 Map — https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-... NASA Earth Observatory (2012), Gas Drilling, North Dakota — https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-... U.S. Energy Information Administration (2024), United States produces more crude oil than any country, ever — https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/det... Popper & Popper (1987), The Great Plains: From Dust to Dust, Planning — https://knrc.org/Files/MtNRC/Popper_1... National Park Service, New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve — https://www.nps.gov/pine/planyourvisi... State of New York, Hamilton County — https://www.ny.gov/counties/hamilton South Carolina Encyclopedia, Allendale — https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/en... New Georgia Encyclopedia, Taliaferro County — https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/a... Florida State Parks, The Rare Florida Torreya Tree — https://www.floridastateparks.org/lea... Encyclopedia of Alabama, Jimmie Lee Jackson — https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/art... Mississippi Today (2023), In this shrinking Mississippi Delta county — https://mississippitoday.org/2023/12/... National Hurricane Center, Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Laura — https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL1... Encyclopaedia Britannica, Northwest Angle — https://www.britannica.com/place/Nort... Oklahoma Historical Society, Boise City — https://www.okhistory.org/publication... Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Tyrannosaurus rex — https://carnegiemnh.org/tyrannosaurs-... USGS Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (2020), The roads less traveled — https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/yv... Colorado Encyclopedia, Alferd Packer — https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/arti... Travel Nevada, The Loneliest Road in America — https://travelnevada.com/road-trips/l... HistoryLink, Garfield County: Thumbnail History — https://www.historylink.org/File/7728 National Park Service, Kalaupapa History and Culture — https://www.nps.gov/kala/learn/histor... LegiScan, Hawaii SB1432 (2026), Act 171 — https://legiscan.com/HI/bill/SB1432/2026 Handbook of Texas, Loving County — https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/e... Handbook of Texas, Loving, Oliver — https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/e...