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America's Vinyl Capitals, 2026
The 25 best US cities for record shopping — ranked not by raw store count (that contest just measures population) but by how many shops a city supports per resident, and how good those shops actually are. Crates per capita, quality-checked. Updated July 15, 2026.
The ranking
| # | City | Stores | Per 100k people | Median rating | Score |
| 1 | Lancaster, PA | 10 | 17.1 | ★ 4.7 | 80.4 |
| 2 | Pensacola, FL | 7 | 13 | ★ 4.8 | 62.3 |
| 3 | Portland, ME | 9 | 12.9 | ★ 4.8 | 62.1 |
| 4 | Sarasota, FL | 6 | 10.4 | ★ 4.8 | 49.9 |
| 5 | Asheville, NC | 7 | 7.4 | ★ 4.8 | 35.4 |
| 6 | West Allis, WI | 4 | 6.7 | ★ 4.8 | 32.5 |
| 7 | Pittsburgh, PA | 21 | 6.8 | ★ 4.7 | 32.1 |
| 8 | Santa Fe, NM | 6 | 6.6 | ★ 4.8 | 32.1 |
| 9 | Wilmington, DE | 5 | 6.8 | ★ 4.7 | 32.1 |
| 10 | Corvallis, OR | 4 | 6.5 | ★ 5 | 31.9 |
| 11 | Greenville, SC | 5 | 6.7 | ★ 4.7 | 31.6 |
| 12 | Grand Rapids, MI | 13 | 6.5 | ★ 4.8 | 31.5 |
| 13 | Santa Cruz, CA | 4 | 6.4 | ★ 4.8 | 30.7 |
| 14 | St. Louis, MO | 17 | 6.1 | ★ 4.7 | 28.6 |
| 15 | Lebanon, TN | 3 | 5.8 | ★ 4.9 | 28.5 |
| 16 | Flint, MI | 5 | 6.3 | ★ 4.5 | 28.2 |
| 17 | Mooresville, NC | 3 | 5.7 | ★ 4.9 | 27.8 |
| 18 | Green Bay, WI | 6 | 5.6 | ★ 4.8 | 26.8 |
| 19 | Wilmington, NC | 7 | 5.6 | ★ 4.8 | 26.8 |
| 20 | Pasadena, CA | 8 | 5.8 | ★ 4.6 | 26.8 |
| 21 | Bonita Springs, FL | 3 | 5.3 | ★ 5 | 26.3 |
| 22 | Oak Park, IL | 3 | 5.7 | ★ 4.6 | 26.1 |
| 23 | Canton, OH | 4 | 5.8 | ★ 4.5 | 25.7 |
| 24 | Rocklin, CA | 4 | 5.3 | ★ 4.8 | 25.3 |
| 25 | Evanston, IL | 4 | 5.3 | ★ 4.8 | 25.3 |
How the score works
Score = record stores per 100,000 residents × the median Google rating of the city's stores. Density rewards cities where vinyl is genuinely part of the culture rather than a big-city numbers artifact; the rating term keeps a pile of mediocre shops from beating five great ones. Only cities over 50,000 people with at least 3 record stores qualify — 25 cities made the cut.
Store counts come from our continuously maintained national directory of 3,661 US record stores (834,253 customer reviews between them); populations are US Census 2024 estimates. Ratings are customer-review averages per store, so treat them as crowd opinion, not a lab test.
Cite this data
Free to use with attribution (CC BY 4.0). Suggested line:
"According to RecordShops.net's 2026 Vinyl Capitals ranking (recordshops.net/vinyl-stats/vinyl-capitals/), Lancaster, PA has more highly rated record stores per resident than any other US city."