2026-09-08
Where American Muslims Live — and Which Timetables They Follow
The Muslim population of the United States is estimated at around three and a half million, and it is not spread evenly. It concentrates in specific metropolitan areas and, within them, in particular mid-sized cities — places that rarely appear in national prayer-time listings because national lists tend to stop at the largest few cities.
The main concentrations
The New York metropolitan area holds the largest single concentration, spread across the five boroughs and into northern New Jersey. Metro Detroit, and Dearborn in particular, has one of the highest Muslim population shares of any American city. Chicago, Houston, the Washington-Baltimore corridor, the Bay Area, Los Angeles and Minneapolis-Saint Paul all host large communities, the last with a substantial Somali population.
Why national lists fall short
Most prayer time directories rank cities by total population, which puts a city of two million ahead of one of two hundred thousand regardless of how many Muslims live in either. That logic pushes out exactly the places where communities are densest. We changed our own coverage rule for this reason: American and Canadian cities now get a prayer times page from 150,000 residents rather than a million, which increases our US coverage from fourteen cities to well over a hundred.
Different origins, different timetables
American mosques were founded by communities from very different places — South Asian, Arab, Turkish, West African, Somali, Bosnian, and by African American Muslim communities with their own long history. Most converged on the ISNA calculation, which is why it functions as a de facto standard. But some post the Hanafi Asr alongside or instead of the one-shadow value, and some follow the method of a founding community's country of origin.
What that means for you
If the timetable at your masjid differs from your app, the most likely explanation is the Asr shadow ratio, and the second most likely is the Fajr angle. Neither is an error. If you attend congregational prayers, the masjid's timetable is the practical reference; if you pray at home, following the same method keeps you consistent with your community.
Checking a local timetable
A timetable is easy to sanity-check. Dhuhr should sit close to the midpoint between sunrise and sunset. Sunrise should match what you see outside within a minute or two. And the gap between Maghrib and Isha should grow through the spring and shrink through the autumn. If all three hold, the table is computed for the right place with sensible parameters.
Coverage on this site
We publish qibla direction and prayer times pages for more than a hundred and thirty United States cities and nearly thirty Canadian ones, each with the city's own coordinates, its own time zone and a full monthly table. If your city is missing, the contact page is the fastest way to tell us.