U. S. Metro Area Population "March Madness" quiz

[hotdogPi]

DFW's metro area is larger. Houston is the 4th largest city proper.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

When in doubt, click Phoenix, Riverside, Orlando or Tampa. They are the most probable cinderellas in that order. I would have never guessed the Phoenix metro area is that large, considering it is an oven in the Summer.

[NWI_Irish96]

When in doubt, click Phoenix, Riverside, Orlando or Tampa. They are the most probable cinderellas in that order. I would have never guessed the Phoenix metro area is that large, considering it is an oven in the Summer.

Maricopa County paid the Census Bureau to conduct an interim Census in 2005 because they were growing so fast and didn't want to wait until 2010 for new data.

[hotdogPi]

When in doubt, click Phoenix, Riverside, Orlando or Tampa. They are the most probable cinderellas in that order. I would have never guessed the Phoenix metro area is that large, considering it is an oven in the Summer.

Phoenix proper is really large. It's not just because of the metro area/city proper difference.

[formulanone]

DFW's metro area is larger. Houston is the 4th largest city proper.

That one also tripped me up when they matched up (I-45 Series?).

[SectorZ]

54 in the city one, 57 in the state one. That Riverside one shocked me, too.

I feel the state one is easy if you follow presidential elections just by remembering how many electoral votes each state has. Of course, the American Samoa vs. Northern Marianas Islands matchup was a complete guess for me.

[webny99]

DFW's metro area is larger. Houston is the 4th largest city proper.

That one also tripped me up when they matched up (I-45 Series?).

Yeah, me too, and the frustrating thing is I knew Dallas has the more populous metro area. But I stupidly clicked Houston anyways.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

New York always win. Most of the times the final will be NYC vs Los Angeles, so I like when both NYC and L.A. end up on the same side of the bracket as that means NYC will have a different rival in the final. I've just done a perfect bracket where the top 5 metro areas (NYC, L.A., Chicago, Dallas and Houston) ended up on the same side, thus matching NYC against Washington DC (the 6th largest metro area) in the final.

[Bruce]

It would be fun to take this kind of bracket format and apply it to other measurements, like metro area GDP, median household income, population growth, miles of freeways/rail transit, and density. It would be much harder to guess.

[kevinb1994]

It would be fun to take this kind of bracket format and apply it to other measurements, like metro area GDP, median household income, population growth, miles of freeways/rail transit, and density. It would be much harder to guess.

That'd be too much March Madness for some people.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Okay, I'm going to solve this. As I've said New York City always wins the Championship, and thus will be always a finalist. Avoid Knoxville like the plague, as that is the 64th metro area and thus loses to everyone else.

The least populated metro areas that can reach any given round are...
Round of 32: Albany (it has to be paired with Knoxville for this to happen)
Round of 16: Greenville
Quarterfinals: Bridgeport
Semifinals: Birmingham
Final: Cleveland (for a Cleveland vs New York final to happen, the top half of the field must be all on one side of the bracket and the bottom half on the other)

OTOH, Los Angeles can be out already in the First Round, if it gets paired with New York (I have had this happen a few times already). The first metro area to be out of the field is that of McAllen.

[Buck87]

55 on metros
61 on states

[CNGL-Leudimin]

I've just done a perfect bracket where the top 5 metro areas (NYC, L.A., Chicago, Dallas and Houston) ended up on the same side, thus matching NYC against Washington DC (the 6th largest metro area) in the final.

Now Washington was in the same side as the other five, so the final featured NYC against Miami (the 7th largest metro area). Miami is also the largest metro area that can win the Wooden Spoon (i.e. lose against a rival which in turn loses in the next round and so on until the final).