[Can’t see the map? Click here.]

Cities across the United States and adding lots of new apartments and they are building them smaller, but that’s not necessarily true in Alabama. And that’s definitely not true in two of the state’s largest cities, where Mobile and Huntsville are now building some of the biggest apartments in the nation.

RELATED: How much does it cost to retire in Alabama

In fact, both cities ranked in the top 10 for new apartment size among the 100 cities included in a recent study by RentCafe, an apartment search website, using data from Yardi Matrix.

[Can’t see the list? Click here.]

Mobile had the third largest average apartment size in the United States for new apartments – those built between 2013 and 2022. New units in the Port City average 1,080 square feet. That trailed only two Florida cities – Tallahassee (1,182 square feet) and Gainesville (1,105).

Mobile’s apartments are also growing significantly bigger. The average new apartment is about 188 square feet larger than apartments there were 10 years ago. That was also the nation’s third largest increase in terms of square footage over the last decade.

Meanwhile, Huntsville ranked No. 10 in the nation for new apartment size, with the average new unit coming in at 1,022 square feet. Rocket City apartments, like those in Mobile, are also getting bigger, increasing in size by about 113 square feet over the decade.

During that same period, the average U.S. apartment got about 54 square feet smaller, down to 887 square feet in 2022, with the biggest decline coming just last year. That national trend is spurred in part by the proliferation of studio and one-bedroom apartments.

[Can’t see the chart? Click here.]

Birmingham, another of the state’s largest cities and the only other Alabama city RentCafe had data for, is seeing its new apartments get smaller. The average new apartment in the Magic City was just 874 square feet, which ranked 65 out of 100 eligible U.S. cities in 2022, and was slightly smaller than the national average. That’s a sizable shift from prior to this decade, when Birmingham had some of the largest apartments in the nation at roughly 970 square feet.

Do you have an idea for a data story about Alabama? Email Ramsey Archibald at [email protected], and follow him on Twitter @RamseyArchibald. Read more Alabama data stories here.