Here Are The US Cities With The Most Smokers

As with many health habits, smoking rates vary from city to city.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, working with state health agencies, routinely gathers data on Americans' health habits and risks in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey program. The CDC recently released data from 2011 for almost 200 metro areas and cities across the US.

One of the risk factors the CDC asks survey respondents about is smoking. In their data release, the CDC defines current cigarette smokers as "respondents who reported they had smoked at least 100 cigarettes in their lifetime and, at the time of the interview, smoked every day or some days."

This map uses the 2011 data and shows the concentration of current smokers in each metro area:

Northern Utah and southern Idaho are home to the metro areas with the lowest proportion of smokers. The big Californian cities of Los Angeles, San Diego, and the Bay Area also have a smaller proportion of smokers than other metros. Meanwhile, the South and Midwest have quite a few smokers.

Here are the ten cities with the highest concentration of smokers:

Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data from CDC

And here are the ten cities with the lowest concentration of smokers:

Business Insider/Andy Kiersz, data from CDC