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United States · Census Bureau · July 1, 2025
National figures.
Counts from the U.S. Census Bureau for the states, the District of Columbia, and each county. Open a state for the parishes, boroughs, cities, and other areas in the Bureau's county file. A darker place has a larger count.
Change is the July 1, 2025 estimate minus the April 1, 2020 estimates base. That base begins with the 2020 census. Age and median age use the same July 1 estimates. House seats are the ones the 2020 census assigned.
Health
Chemicals measured in fast food, and drinking water.
These are chemicals measured in fast food that brands advertise. One study measured fluorinated chemicals in the packaging, not in the food. The point is those chemicals, and the effects described for them in the body. Healthcare is one of the largest questions in this election. The measurements are here so that question includes what has been found. A later table covers studies of aggression, irritability, and hyperactivity.
The number beside a brand is its published U.S. restaurant count. McDonald's is 13,706 restaurants at December 31, 2025, from its annual report. The other published counts are year-end 2024 U.S. units from QSR Magazine's 2025 QSR 50. Where that report estimated a figure, the detail says so. The map draws OpenStreetMap points, which is fewer than the published count. A number marked tagged has no separate published total here.
Each restaurant mark is a drawing of a food the brand sells, placed on an OpenStreetMap point. Roads, cities, and neighborhoods are on the same map. Zoom in. Sort the brands by the published count, or by name, and choose one brand to draw only those places.
A 2021 study measured plasticizers in hamburgers, fries, chicken burritos, cheese pizza, chicken nuggets, and plain patties. An FDA survey measured acrylamide in restaurant fries. A 2017 study measured fluorinated chemicals in packaging, not in the food. Choose a chemical under the map. The drawing beside the name is the effect described for that chemical. A later list shows the highest and lowest amounts in each published comparison. The list is not every chemical that can be in fast food. Distribution centers are addresses one McDonald's supplier publishes. Their mark is a factory drawing. The address is a distribution center, and no delivery route is published.
Brands
Neighborhoods
A restaurant is counted with the nearest named neighborhood, suburb, or quarter in OpenStreetMap, when one is within 2 kilometers. The city is the nearest named city or town in the same state. Choose a brand to rank these places by that brand. The rank uses the restaurants drawn on this map.
Chemicals measured
These are not the only chemicals that can be in fast food. Each group is one published study. A percent in one group is not comparable to a percent in another.
Edwards and coauthors bought 64 foods in San Antonio in 2017 and 2018 and measured 11 plasticizers. A hamburger with toppings had cheese, tomato, pickles, onion, lettuce, and condiments. A plain patty had none of those. Chicken burritos were ordered two ways: white rice, black beans, cheese, mild salsa, and lettuce; or refried pinto beans, cheese, onion, sour cream, tomato, lettuce, and a tomato sauce. The supplement marks six chains as the ones in the study: McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Domino's, Taco Bell, and Chipotle. The result tables call them Chain A and Chain B and do not say which name had the higher amount.
Higher and lower amounts
This is not a ranking of the most harmful chain. No study on this page publishes that score. The fry survey is the only comparison that names chains. The plasticizer paper prints a higher amount and a lower amount and does not name the chains. The packaging study does not name chains. These are measurements in food or in packaging, not a list of chemicals a chain adds as ingredients.
Aggression and irritability
These studies asked whether a food chemical is associated with aggression. Evidence that one chemical causes aggression in people is limited. A study of hyperactivity or irritability is not a study of aggression. None of these studies tested the restaurants drawn on the map.
| What was studied | What the study found | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Trans fat | Golomb and coauthors, 2012, studied 945 adults who completed a diet survey, out of 1,018 people screened. Higher dietary trans fat was associated with more aggression and irritability. The analysis adjusted for sex, age, education, alcohol, and smoking. PLOS One. | The study observed the association. It did not assign people to eat trans fat, and the authors say confounding remains a concern. In 2015 the FDA determined that partially hydrogenated oils, the main source of artificial trans fat, are not generally recognized as safe. For most uses, manufacturers could not add them to food after June 18, 2018. Food already made could continue through distribution until January 1, 2020. FDA. |
| Artificial food colors and sodium benzoate | McCann and coauthors, 2007, gave 153 children age 3 and 144 children age 8 or 9 a drink. The drink contained a mixture of artificial colors and sodium benzoate, or a placebo. Some mixtures were followed by higher hyperactivity scores. The Lancet. | The outcome was hyperactivity, not aggression. Each drink mixed several additives, so the trial does not say which additive produced the change. The European Food Safety Authority later called the evidence limited. The effect was small, it was not consistent across ages and mixtures, and the authority did not change the safety evaluation of those additives. EFSA. |
| Calcium propionate, a bread preservative | Dengate and Ruben, 2002, gave 27 children bread with calcium propionate or a placebo. The children had already been selected because their behavior improved on a diet that removed additives. Average behavior scores were not significantly different. Relative to placebo, behavior worsened for 52% and improved for 19%. PubMed. | The group was small and already selected. The authors describe irritability, restlessness, inattention, and sleep disturbance in some children. The paper does not report a finding on aggression. |
| Soft drinks | Shi and coauthors, 2020, used school surveys from 64 countries. The surveys included 263,890 adolescents, ages 12 to 18. Students who reported more soft drinks also reported more physical fights. Frequent fighting meant three or more fights in the past 12 months. Each additional time per day was associated with an 11% higher likelihood of frequent fighting, with a 95% confidence interval of 10% to 13%, after adjustment. Nutrients. | The surveys do not say whether sugar, caffeine, or another part of the drink explains the association. Students reported their own drinks and fights. Fast-food intake also rose with soft-drink intake. The study did not assign anyone to drink soda. |
| Sugar | Wolraich, Wilson, and White, 1995, combined 16 reports covering 23 blinded studies. Each study compared a known amount of sugar with an artificial-sweetener placebo. For every behavior and cognition measure they pooled, the confidence interval included no effect. JAMA. | The authors say a small effect, or an effect in a subset of children, cannot be ruled out. These were short trials of one dose. They are not a study of a child's usual diet over years. |
Of these, the trans fat study is the one that measured aggression in adults. The color and preservative studies are about hyperactivity, irritability, or attention. The soft-drink study counts fights and does not name a chemical.
Distribution centers
Martin Brower publishes street addresses for distribution centers that supply McDonald's restaurants. Those addresses are geocoded and drawn with a factory mark. The list does not say where the food is manufactured, and it does not give the roads between a center and a restaurant. No line on this map is a delivery route.
Addresses
Water
These are active community water systems in EPA's Drinking Water System Search. A community system serves homes. The number is EPA's count of quarters with a Safe Drinking Water Act violation over the past three years. That count includes monitoring and reporting violations. It is not a measurement from one tap, and it is not a score this page calculated.
A health-based flag means EPA currently marks a violation of a maximum contaminant level, a maximum residual disinfectant level, or a treatment technique. Neighborhoods use the same OpenStreetMap names as the restaurant list. A neighborhood is matched to the community system that serves the most people among systems whose served city matches that neighborhood's city and state. EPA does not publish a separate result for the neighborhood.
A lighter dot is fewer quarters with a violation. A darker dot is more. Each dot is a neighborhood. The color is the community system that serves the most people in that city and state. A neighborhood with no matching served city is not drawn. The dot is not a sample from a tap.
Roads and cities: OpenFreeMap, OpenMapTiles, OpenStreetMap.
Each block is one quarter in this count, up to 12. The bar fills one block for each quarter with a violation. The color darkens as that count rises.
A chemical appears here when EPA names it on a current health-based violation. Current means the violation is unaddressed or addressed in the 2026Q3 snapshot. Resolved and archived violations are not listed. Above a limit means a maximum contaminant level: EPA recorded that contaminant above the allowed amount. That is not a sample from one tap, and a missed test is not included. A treatment technique is a required process, not a chemical measured in the water. EPA does not publish a ranking of which contaminant is most harmful, and this page does not calculate one. Health goal of zero means EPA's public-health goal is no amount of that contaminant. The sentence is EPA's description of exposure above the limit, from the National Primary Drinking Water Regulations.