Madison Regional Market
Madison does not currently appear in the North American Top-400 Regional Markets list. At 77 miles from Milwaukee it sits outside the 80 km outer edge of the suburban-regional band the ranking uses, though narrowly.
Overview
According to Wikipedia (accessed 2026-07-10), Madison had 269,840 residents at the 2020 census (a 2024 estimate of 285,300, and the fastest-growing city in Wisconsin as of 2024) across roughly 79.57 square miles of land — Wisconsin's second-most populous city. It sits 77 miles west of Milwaukee and 122 miles northwest of Chicago, on an isthmus between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona. The University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW Health, and Wisconsin state government are the largest employers; Epic Systems, headquartered in nearby Verona, represents the largest private-sector employer. The economy emphasizes government, education, information technology, and healthcare, supplemented by agribusiness and precision manufacturing. Capital Square serves as the central business district, with State Street connecting the university campus to downtown through a corridor of bars and theatres. As of 2020, 58.5 percent of residents held bachelor's degrees or higher, with a median household income of $67,565.
Regional Market Standing
Madison does not currently appear in the [[atlas-top-400-north-america|Top 400 Regional Markets — North America]] list. This is not a data defect; at 77 miles (124 km) from Milwaukee, it falls outside the 80 km outer boundary of the co-location scoring system's suburban-regional band. This classifies it as standalone-secondary.
See Also
References
- Madison, Wisconsin — Wikipedia, accessed 2026-07-10
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