HomeTaekwondo stats › Underserved cities

America's Most Underserved Taekwondo Cities (2026)

The flip side of the taekwondo capitals: big American cities where you can barely find a school inside the city limits. These are the 30 most populous US cities (100,000+ residents) with zero or one taekwondo school in our 4,346-school national directory — 6.1 million people between them. If you've ever thought about opening a taekwondo school, this is the market-gap list. Updated 2026-07-19.

The list

Top of the table: Long Beach, California — 450,901 people, a single taekwondo school. The biggest city with none at all is St. Paul, Minnesota (307,465 residents — 8 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 schools are a drive away, and the local walk-in market is unclaimed.

#CityPopulationTaekwondo schools in directory
1 Long Beach, CA 450,901 1
2 Oakland, CA 443,554 1
3 St. Paul, MN 307,465 0
4 Toledo, OH 265,638 0
5 Port St. Lucie, FL 258,575 1
6 Glendale, AZ 258,143 0
7 Richmond, VA 233,655 1
8 Spokane, WA 230,609 1
9 Tacoma, WA 228,202 1
10 Modesto, CA 220,592 0
11 Sioux Falls, SD 209,289 1
12 Columbus, GA 201,830 1
13 Fort Lauderdale, FL 190,641 1
14 Ontario, CA 185,285 1
15 Newport News, VA 183,056 0
16 Surprise, AZ 167,564 1
17 Killeen, TX 160,616 1
18 Hayward, CA 158,440 1
19 Charleston, SC 157,665 1
20 Kansas City, KS 156,752 0
21 Joliet, IL 151,837 1
22 Escondido, CA 148,847 1
23 Savannah, GA 148,808 1
24 Waco, TX 146,608 1
25 Visalia, CA 146,271 1
26 Syracuse, NY 146,097 0
27 Miramar, FL 143,242 1
28 Jackson, MS 141,449 0
29 Elizabeth, NJ 140,413 1
30 West Valley City, UT 138,144 1

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

Cite this data

Suggested attribution: “America's Most Underserved Taekwondo Cities” — TaekwondoClasses.net, 2026, linked to https://www.taekwondoclasses.net/taekwondo-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 2026-07-19

Methodology: school counts from our continuously maintained national directory of 4,346 taekwondo schools (public business listings, filtered to genuine taekwondo schools with a taekwondo 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. Schools are matched to cities by the city name on their address. Refreshed with each re-crawl — cities graduate off this list when a school opens. Browse what nearby markets look like instead: schools by state, or the full stats hub.