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America's Most Underserved BJJ Cities (2026)

The flip side of the BJJ capitals: big American cities where you can barely find a gym inside the city limits. These are the 30 most populous US cities (100,000+ residents) with zero or one BJJ gym in our 6,639-gym national directory — 4.5 million people between them. If you've ever thought about opening a BJJ gym, this is the market-gap list. Updated 2026-07-18.

The list

Top of the table: St. Paul, Minnesota — 307,465 people, no BJJ gym. The biggest city with none at all is St. Paul, Minnesota (307,465 residents — 9 of the 30 cities are at zero). Many of these are big suburbs in major metros, which is exactly the point: the anchor city's gyms are a drive away, and the local walk-in market is unclaimed.

#CityPopulationBJJ gyms in directory
1 St. Paul, MN 307,465 0
2 Yonkers, NY 211,040 1
3 Montgomery, AL 195,818 1
4 Akron, OH 189,664 1
5 Ontario, CA 185,285 1
6 Killeen, TX 160,616 0
7 Paterson, NJ 160,463 0
8 Macon, GA 157,056 1
9 Kansas City, KS 156,752 1
10 Springfield, MA 154,888 0
11 Joliet, IL 151,837 1
12 Mesquite, TX 150,140 1
13 Pomona, CA 147,966 1
14 Rockford, IL 147,486 1
15 Jackson, MS 141,449 0
16 West Valley City, UT 138,144 1
17 Warren, MI 137,686 0
18 Hampton, VA 137,596 1
19 Sterling Heights, MI 134,342 1
20 Hartford, CT 122,129 0
21 Independence, MO 121,629 1
22 Cambridge, MA 121,186 1
23 Lowell, MA 120,418 1
24 Goodyear, AZ 118,186 1
25 Menifee, CA 117,041 1
26 Miami Gardens, FL 116,173 0
27 Waterbury, CT 115,908 0
28 Provo, UT 115,479 1
29 Greeley, CO 114,363 1
30 Buckeye, AZ 114,334 1

Read it fairly: counts are within city limits. Aurora trains in Denver; Mesa drives to Phoenix. "Underserved" here means no local gym — not that residents have never rolled.

Cite this data

Suggested attribution: “America's Most Underserved BJJ Cities” — BJJGyms.net, 2026, linked to https://www.bjjgyms.net/bjj-stats/underserved/. The tables are CC BY 4.0: chart them, quote them, publish them — just link back. Want a custom cut (by state, metro, or discipline)? Email us.

Download the full CSV Data updated 2026-07-18

Methodology: gym counts from our continuously maintained national directory of 6,639 BJJ gyms (public business listings, filtered to genuine BJJ gyms with a jiu-jitsu class on the schedule). City universe = incorporated places and consolidated city-governments with 100,000+ residents, US Census 2024 estimates; census names normalized to everyday names (Nashville-Davidson → Nashville) so no city is falsely flagged. Gyms are matched to cities by the city name on their address. Refreshed with each re-crawl — cities graduate off this list when a gym opens. Browse what nearby markets look like instead: gyms by state, or the full stats hub.