Los Angeles vs Miami: the Instagram rivalry in numbers

Two American cities, two very different Instagram maps. MVP's city rankings place people in the city where they live or build their career, and at the time of writing (24 October 2026) Los Angeles has 158 ranked profiles while Miami has 34. The difference in volume is huge, but the comparison gets more interesting once you look at who sits at the top of each list and what kind of profiles fill it.

Los Angeles: a crowded top

The Los Angeles Top 10 adds up to 3,264.8M followers. What stands out is how tight the race is at the top. Selena Gomez leads with 402.4M, followed by Kylie Jenner with 381.3M and Dwayne Johnson with 380.3M. Second and third place are almost level in our data, so the order can change from one sync to the next. Fourth place, Ariana Grande (362.2M), is not far behind either.

Music is the backbone of the city ranking. Five of the ten profiles are in the Musicians & bands category: Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, Beyoncé, Justin Bieber and Jennifer Lopez. The other five spots are spread across four categories: two public figures (Kim Kardashian and Khloé Kardashian), one entrepreneur (Kylie Jenner), one actor (Dwayne Johnson) and one model (Kendall Jenner).

The list is also deep. Tenth place, Jennifer Lopez, still has 239.8M, and the gap between first and tenth place is smaller than in Miami.

Not everyone in the Los Angeles list is listed under the United States. Justin Bieber appears under Canada, which shows how the city ranking works: it follows where people are based, not the country they are listed under. His count (287.1M) is also the only one in this Top 10 read manually from the public profile instead of through the Instagram API, and the ranking page labels it that way.

Miami: one giant and a music scene

Miami's Top 10 adds up to 838.4M followers, and a single profile explains a large part of it. Lionel Messi leads the city with 517.7M, more than any profile in the Los Angeles list, including Selena Gomez. In other words, the most followed person in either city is in the smaller ranking.

Behind him, Shakira is second with 103.3M. From third place onwards the figures move to a different scale: Nicky Jam has 42.1M, and Camilo, Sebastián Yatra and Jake Paul each appear with 28M in our data. The bottom half of the list belongs to Logan Paul, Gisele Bündchen, Farruko and Adriana Lima, who closes the Top 10 with 20.1M.

Miami's list is the more international of the two. Only Jake Paul and Logan Paul are listed under the United States. The rest are listed under Argentina (Messi), Colombia (Shakira, Camilo and Sebastián Yatra), Puerto Rico (Nicky Jam and Farruko) and Brazil (Gisele Bündchen and Adriana Lima). For a Spanish or Portuguese speaking audience, this is the US city ranking that feels closest to home.

The category mix is wider too. Like Los Angeles, Miami has five profiles in Musicians & bands. The other five come from four different categories: two models, one footballer, one boxing profile and one digital creator.

Head to head

• Ranked profiles: 158 in Los Angeles, 34 in Miami.
• Combined Top 10: 3,264.8M in Los Angeles, 838.4M in Miami.
• Number one: Selena Gomez in Los Angeles, Lionel Messi in Miami. Messi has the higher count of the two.
• Musicians in the Top 10: five in each city.
• Countries in the Top 10: two in Los Angeles (United States and Canada), five in Miami.

What the comparison shows

Los Angeles wins on depth. Its Top 10 has no weak spot: every profile in it has a figure in the hundreds of millions, and the competition for first place is open. If you want to understand where mainstream entertainment lives on Instagram, this is the list to read.

Miami wins on reach per name and on diversity. One footballer carries the city past every individual in Los Angeles, and the rest of the ranking is a portrait of music and modelling with an international accent. The gap between first and third place is much larger than in Los Angeles, which makes Miami a ranking of one giant plus a strong supporting cast.

Both cities agree on one thing: music. Half of each Top 10 comes from the same category, even though the rest of each list looks completely different.

Where to look next

The full lists go well beyond the Top 10. See the complete Los Angeles ranking and the Miami ranking, or zoom out to the United States ranking to see how both cities compare with the rest of the country. If you want to know how we place people in a city, read our methodology. And if someone based in either city is missing, you can submit a profile.