U.S. Food Access & Food Desert Data
County-level food desert rankings built from USDA Food Access Research Atlas and Census ACS 5-year poverty, SNAP, and no-vehicle indicators. Verifiable against the source rows.
County rankings of US food deserts via unique composite score weighting poverty (40%), SNAP (30%), no-vehicle households (30%) from Census ACS.
County-level food desert data from the USDA Economic Research Service. Explore food access, SNAP participation, and transportation barriers for 3,144 U.S. counties.
Worst Food Deserts
| # | County | Low Access % |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kusilvak Census Area , AK | 79.8% |
| 2 | Oglala Lakota County , SD | 79.8% |
| 3 | Todd County , SD | 79.7% |
| 4 | Wolfe County , KY | 79.4% |
| 5 | Sioux County , ND | 79.2% |
| 6 | Lee County , KY | 79.0% |
| 7 | Buffalo County , SD | 79.0% |
| 8 | Jackson County , SD | 79.0% |
| 9 | Dimmit County , TX | 79.0% |
| 10 | Randolph County , GA | 78.9% |
Browse by State
National food-desert share
The U.S. national average low-food-access share across 3,144 counties is 39.7%, per USDA ERS Food Access Research Atlas. The gauge below sets the U.S. average against a 50% reference ceiling — every 5-point increment represents roughly 11 million additional residents in a USDA low-access tract.
U.S. national average low-food-access population share (USDA ERS)
Food Access Distribution by County Tier
PlainFoodAccess maps every U.S. county to one of three USDA-defined food-access tiers based on distance to the nearest supermarket and household income.
Top 5 Counties — Largest Food-Desert Populations
Counties with the largest absolute populations meeting the USDA low-income, low-access threshold.
Counties — Most Affected (Top 5)
What Are Food Deserts?
Food deserts are areas where residents have limited access to affordable, nutritious food. The USDA defines low food access as living more than 1 mile from a supermarket in urban areas, or more than 10 miles in rural areas.
This site uses data from the USDA Economic Research Service Food Access Research Atlas, combined with Census Bureau demographic data and SNAP participation statistics.
Food Access Guides
Understanding Food Access Data
What Census ACS indicators measure, how SNAP and poverty relate to food access, and what the data shows.
What Are Food Deserts?
USDA criteria for low-access areas, urban vs. rural challenges, and how food deserts connect to health outcomes.
Food Security by County
Geographic patterns, which counties face the biggest challenges, and what drives disparities across the U.S.
How Food Deserts Affect Health
Research on diet-related disease, state data on food desert populations, and what interventions work.
States Leading on Food Programs
Which states do best on SNAP, WIC, school meals, and farmers market access programs.
Explore the data
Live county and state rankings drawn directly from the USDA Food Access Research Atlas and Census ACS rows in our database. How we compute the metrics.
Top 100 Counties by Low-Access Share
Live ranking of U.S. counties by the share of population living in low-access food areas, computed at request time from the USDA Food Access Research Atlas.
RankingsCounties by SNAP Participation
Live ranking of U.S. counties by the share of households receiving SNAP benefits, drawn from the Census ACS 5-Year estimates for the latest data year.
BrowseFood Access by State
Browse food access aggregations for every U.S. state, including the District of Columbia, with per-county rollups and state-level low-access totals.