US Business Center of Gravity, 1996–2025

About this chart

Each dot is one company's headquarters in that year, and its area is the company's share of the total revenue of that year's 100. A company new to the top 100 is drawn larger and brighter and fades to blue over three years. The ringed gold dot is the center of gravity: the average of the headquarters' latitudes and of their longitudes, each weighted by the company's revenue, so the center moves both when companies join or leave and when their revenues change. The gold line behind it is the path the center has taken. The roster beside the map names the ten largest companies; the map shows all 100. The line under the date says which way the center moved and which companies came in and went out. The map is the lower 48 states on an equal-area projection. The animation runs the record over thirty-five seconds, holds on the last date for three seconds, and loops. The scrubber under the chart marks each date and pauses on any of them.

Method

The members are the 100 US companies with the largest total revenue each year from 1996 to 2025, among companies that file annual reports (10-K) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and give a business address in the 50 states or DC. A company's revenue is the top-line total on the income statement of that year's own 10-K, as first reported: it includes the excise and other sales taxes the company collects, it is net of credit losses, and for a bank that prints no total it is interest income plus noninterest income. A fiscal year that ends between January and May counts in the calendar year before. A company whose results are consolidated in another company's figures is left out, so each business counts once. Figures from 2009 on come from the SEC's structured (XBRL) data, checked against each statement; earlier figures are read from the 10-K text, and where a year's 10-K is missing from the SEC's archive, from the next 10-K's five-year table. Each company sits at the headquarters city its 10-K gives that year, placed at that city's point in the US Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System, or, for a few places that list lacks, the Census Bureau's ZIP-code point. The center is the average of the 100 latitudes and of the 100 longitudes, each weighted by the company's revenue. Private companies and mutually owned insurers file no 10-K and are not included, so this is not the Fortune 500. DataSlapper compiled the ranking and the center, and every figure on the page is computed from the rows the page serves.

Data sources

• US Securities and Exchange Commission — EDGAR, companies' annual reports (Form 10-K)
• US Securities and Exchange Commission — XBRL financial data (frames and company facts), 2009 on
• US Geological Survey — Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), populated places
• US Census Bureau — 2020 Gazetteer, ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (the few headquarters towns GNIS does not list)