Flathead Lake from Polson (1/10)

This view is looking out over Flathead Lake from the population center of Polson. Polson is where we do a majority of our heavy shopping, but I hesitate to call it a “city”. Montana really doesn’t have any cities, we just have population centers; places where a little less to a little over 10,000 people live.

Polson is 70-80 miles from home and is one of only a half-dozen or so population centers. The population centers of Montana include Polson, Kalispell (on the north end of Flathead Lake), Helena (the state capitol), Butte, Billings, Bozeman, Great Falls, and Missoula. Missoula is the largest, though some sources claim that Billings has more people. Missoula has a population of somewhat under 67,000 and is where the University of Montana is located.

Polson, on the other hand, has a population of somewhat under 4,500, though it is one of the fastest growing population centers in the state. 

Compare these numbers with a few of the cities in nearby Oregon. There are about 650,000 people in Portland (between 1-3 million people if all the satellite towns are counted). Salem has 170,000, Eugene has 169,000, Bend has 95,000, Medford has 82,000. In fact, eight towns in Oregon have a greater population than Missoula does. For that matter, if you count the population of Portland without the suburbs, plus Salem, plus Eugene, the total population of just those three cities is greater than the population of the entire state of Montana.

Hence, I usually refer to towns like Polson and even Missoula as population centers rather than cities.