10 of the leafiest city capitals in the United States

To beat climate-driven heat, cities across the United States are turning to a simple and natural solution: trees, which can reduce temperatures and mitigate the heat island affect, while absorbing stormwater runoff and protecting against floods. As communities increasingly turn to this affordable solution, some are further along in their efforts than others.

A new analysis published by the GIS software mapping company Nearmap ranks the leafiest American city capitals based on their canopy cover. Analysts pulled historical and current tree canopy high-resolution aerial imagery on residential areas covering more than 275 million inhabitants, according to an explanation about the work.

“The Nearmap Artificial Intelligence team recently analyzed tree canopy coverage nationwide to determine America’s Top 25 Leafiest Capital Cities. Compiled through its proprietary aerial imagery technology—and coupled with location data from its Nearmap AI platform—this is the first and only research of its kind in the U.S. using a high-resolution data set to compare total residential tree coverage across capital cities for insurers, commercial construction companies, and governments,” the analysis says.

The top 10 ranked city capitals can be found in the gallery above. Visit Nearmap’s website for a complete list of the ranked capital cities.