“Norilsk is also the northernmost city on the planet with a population over 100,000.” -Wikipedia
Not sure what the nearest city with 100,000 would be. Norilsk is also famous as a Gulag dumping ground in Stalin’s time.
I obviously need a better map of Siberia. Thanks for the correction.
Forget it. Norilsk is only 1000 miles approx north of Novosibirsk.
“# The most remote major city with a population in excess of 500,000 is Honolulu in Hawaii. The nearest city of comparable size or greater is San Francisco, 3,841 kilometres (2,387 mi.) away.”
http://www.maps-n-stats.com/us_hi_population.html
This site says Honolulu is 371,000; I assume theymean the metropolitan area?
The closest I’ve been able to find is Novy Urengoy, 582 km away as the crow flies.
Even Alert base on the tip of Canada’s islands in the arctic is only about 2400 miles from the nearest city of 100,000.
I would think that it is only fitting that the nearest place very far away from a population center should be a population center itself, after all, if you are 1 mile outside of Honolulu you are 1 mile outside of Honolulu 
**Most isolated population center in the world **
The Republican party.
(Imagine my disappointment when I opened the thread. I stand by my answer though, and I think I win.)
Wow, that’s an amazing map. Thanks.
The city and county of Honolulu are incorporated, meaning the whole island of Oahu is effectively part of the city. The 371,000 number is the population of the red area in the map on Honolulu’s Wikipedia page. The metro population there is listed at ~910,000.
[Moderator note]
dhkendall, political jabs like this are not permitted in General Questions. No warning issued, but please refrain from such comments in the future.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
That map is really fascinating, but I can’t help but wonder about a few things. Bermuda is coloured as if it will take approximately 36 hours to reach a major city – I have trouble believing flights from Newark or Atlanta are quite that long. Perhaps it has something to do with that triangle. There’s also a few scattered bright spots in the middle of the Tibetan Himalayas; I can’t figure out what they’re supposed to represent. Travel time of even longer than ten days?
I was also surprised to learn about the 50,000+ population centers at oases in the Sahara Desert like Tamanrassat and Sabha.
Very neat; thanks!
If by “city” we really mean metropolitan area, then we need to consider Fairbanks, Alaska.
Per wiki (Fairbanks, Alaska - Wikipedia) it’s just shy of 98,000 and ought to clear 100K in the next couple of years if it hasn’t already.
At which point Anchorage, Alaska which was nominated upthread will be just 260-ish miles from another 100K population center.
Honolulu, the current champion, probably still has a long while before it gets a neighbour as close as Fairbanks is to Anchorage. The next largest city in Hawaii is Hilo, with a population of a little over 40,000 (as of 2000.)
The map doesn’t count air travel.