If you love ice cream — and who doesn’t? — maybe you should consider moving to the Northeast. While the weather may not scream for ice cream, the people sure do! According to a recent analysis, many of the U.S. cities with the highest number of ice cream shops per capita, hail from colder cities in the Eastern Time Zone, heavily skewing toward the Northeast.

The data to determine the “Top Ten U.S. Cities for Ice Cream” was compiled by Infogroup. They looked at over 15 million business records in metropolitan areas of more than 500,000 people to see which had the greatest concentration of ice cream parlors — both chain shops like Dairy Queen and Baskin Robbins and locally-owned shops.

The results showed a clear geographical pattern, and it’s not in the warm, touristy locations with think of. This means that locals are more likely to take an ice cream break than those on vacation.


Top Ten U.S. Cities for Ice Cream per capita

(Number of ice cream shops per 10,000 people)

  1. Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, OH-PA (1.169)
  2. Portland-South Portland, ME (0.990)
  3. Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, FL (0.788)
  4. Scranton-Wilkes-Barre-Hazleton, PA (0.774)
  5. Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT (0.752)
  6. Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD (0.741)
  7. Pittsburgh, PA (0.731)
  8. Toledo, OH (0.697)
  9. Harrisburg-Carlisle, PA (0.696)
  10. New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA (0.688)

These colder cities’ love of ice cream shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to our neighbors to the north. Canadians actually eat more ice cream during the winter than they do in the summer, proving that ice cream is an anytime treat.

Find out what flavors and toppings are our favorites by checking out 25 tasty facts about ice cream you never knew.


Also see, This man invented the ice cream scoop and made summer a whole lot sweeter.


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Meghan is a full-time writer exploring the fun facts behind food. She lives a healthy lifestyle but lives for breakfast, dessert and anything with marinara. She’s thrown away just as many meals as she’s proud of.