Loading the defense economy…
A first-of-its-kind view into the U.S. defense economy across metropolitan areas, showing where DoD contracts and grants, strategic defense assets, and key technology areas are concentrated, and how regions compare to one another. The tool aims to help policymakers, companies, investors, and regional stakeholders understand their region's assets and position, identify distinctive strengths to build on, and uncover opportunities for growth and investment.
We mapped more than 63,000 defense-related assets to create a comprehensive, asset-level picture of the U.S. defense economy. This analysis enables policymakers and economic development organizations to better understand their regional defense footprint, assess their national positioning, identify strategic strengths, and uncover opportunities for growth and investment.
A defense asset is any institution or operational unit that operates at a single physical location in the United States and participates in the defense economy. Assets are defined at the facility level, meaning organizations with multiple locations are represented as separate assets. Defense assets include:
These assets form the basis for a ranking of defense economies across U.S. metropolitan areas. Metros are compared using two overall indicators and five ecosystem dimensions, each of which is explored throughout this dashboard. Each dimension provides a different view of the metro's position, showing that strong defense economies can emerge anywhere, not just in the largest markets.
Hover over each item to learn what it measures and how to interpret the ranking.
The dashboard is designed to help users move from a national view of the U.S. defense economy to a more detailed understanding of metros.
Start with the U.S. Defense Economy section to understand how defense activity is distributed nationally by sector, organization type, technology area, DoD component, and geography.
In the Metro Rankings section, explore how metropolitan areas compare across Defense Economy Rankings and identify the regions that stand out in each dimension.
Use both the U.S. Defense Economy and Metro Ranking sections to benchmark your metro, understand its national position, and pinpoint its strongest dimensions.
Use the Defense Technology Ranking section to explore the top metropolitan areas across different defense technology areas and identify the technologies where your region has the strongest defense activity and competitive position.
Combine rankings, metro profiles, and national comparisons to understand your region’s comparative advantages, identify its distinctive defense capabilities, and uncover opportunities for deeper regional analysis and strategy development.
Interpreting this data and these rankings correctly requires understanding four important distinctions.
The database offers two complementary metrics that should always be read together. Asset Counts (Assets) measure the number of defense assets (facilities) located in a region, regardless of their funding level. USD Allocations (USD) represent the estimated annual DoD funding received by defense assets in the region. This includes DoD contracts and grants awarded to contractors and grantees, UARC and FFRDC annual budgets, and DoD funding for selected defense assets where reliable financial data is publicly available. Estimates are based on average annual allocations for FY2024–FY2025.
Military bases, DoD laboratories, acquisition commands, DLA offices, DIU offices, covered depots, Army ammunition facilities, and most subcontractors do not have a dollar allocation in the database.
This reflects the limits of publicly available data, not the limits of their importance and strategic value.
Approximately 97% of total USD allocations are derived from contract and grant data available at USAspending.gov, the U.S. federal government’s primary public repository of contract and grant obligations. These figures represent direct dollar flows; however, not all funding attributed to a region necessarily remains in that regional economy, as portions of a contract may ultimately flow to suppliers and subcontractors located elsewhere. For defense assets not covered by USAspending.gov, funding estimates were compiled manually from reliable, publicly available sources. Some defense assets lack public financial information and are therefore included without associated dollar allocations.
Dollar figures are attributed to the location of the entity receiving direct DoD funding. This methodological choice aims to capture and characterize the ecosystem of defense players and their scale within each region, rather than to measure the flow of defense spending into those regions via place of performance. Accordingly, these figures do not reflect where contracted work is physically performed, nor do they capture how funds are subsequently distributed to subcontractors or suppliers. In future releases, we intend to incorporate a combined recipient location—place of performance approach to better capture the depth and breadth of defense players and activity in each region.
The U.S. Defense Economy Dashboard captures observable, locatable, and classifiable assets using public and curated sources. Some assets are only partially captured, such as subcontractors. It excludes classified or non-public contracts, military personnel spending, overseas base spending, the full supply chain, and any assessment of an asset’s operational criticality or strategic value.
Before looking at any region, we first need to understand how the U.S. defense economy breaks down nationally — and how domestic defense assets are distributed by activity, sector, organization type, critical technology area, and funding DoD component. Use the toggle to view each breakdown by dollars or by number of assets. These national figures cover the entire United States, including funding to firms and institutions located both inside and outside metropolitan areas.
The estimated annual $485 billion in allocations (calculated as the average of FY2024–FY2025 obligations) is tracked primarily through DoD contracts and grants from USAspending.gov, SBIR/STTR awards data, and other curated official sources. During FY2024 and FY2025, the U.S. Department of Defense obligated approximately $1 trillion annually across all funding mechanisms. These figures are not directly comparable. The DoD total includes military personnel compensation (pay and benefits), classified and intelligence-related spending, working capital funds, contracts and grants awarded to recipients outside the United States, and other appropriations that fall outside the scope of this database. Accordingly, the $485 billion should be interpreted as the portion of annual DoD obligations captured through the funding mechanisms and recipient universe covered by this database, rather than as a measure of total DoD spending.
Explore how U.S. metropolitan areas are positioned within the national defense economy through two complementary rankings. Defense Giants identifies the metros with the largest estimated annual defense allocations, highlighting the absolute scale of their defense economies. High-Density Defense Leaders ranks metros by estimated defense allocations per resident, highlighting places where defense activity is especially significant relative to population.
Use the map to explore the leading metros under either ranking. Select a metro to view its profile, including its position in both rankings and the activities, sectors, technologies, organizations, and DoD components that shape its defense economy. To compare all metropolitan areas and view the complete rankings, switch to the table.
Search or select a metro on the map to preview its defense ecosystem profile.
Explore how U.S. metropolitan areas rank across four core dimensions used to characterize regional defense economies. Use the tabs below to discover the top 25 metros by activity, sector, organization type, and DoD component.
Showing the top 25 metros for the selected category. Bubbles highlight the top 25; hover a bubble for details.
The view displays the top 15 defense technology areas by estimated annual USD allocations nationwide and ranks the top 25 metros within each technology area. Rankings are based on USD allocations. Technology areas were defined by synthesizing official U.S. defense technology priority frameworks. DoD contracts and grants were then linked to those technology areas using a keyword-based methodology applied to award descriptions. Because a single defense asset may be associated with multiple technologies, both USD allocations and asset counts may appear in multiple technology categories. Consequently, technology categories are not mutually exclusive and should not be summed.
Values should be interpreted as the estimated amount of defense allocations (grants and contracts) in a region associated with contract or grant descriptions that mention different capabilities related to each technology area. As a result, these values should be read as directional signals rather than definitive capability assessments.
Please note that we are actively enhancing the technology classification methodology. As the methodology continues to evolve, future updates may refine technology assignments, allocation estimates, and related metro rankings.
Showing the top 25 metros for the selected technology area, sized by estimated annual USD allocations. Hover a bubble for details.
Rankings help identify where a metro stands. Custom diagnostics help explain why and what to do next. We support regional leaders with asset-level analysis, peer benchmarking, clusterization, sector and technology deep dives, and strategy recommendations tailored to local defense-industrial opportunities.
Contact Us →This dashboard is an evolving, work-in-progress resource, and your input helps shape it. If you have comments, ideas for improvement, corrections, or suggestions, we'd love to hear from you.
Share Feedback →To conduct this analysis, we built the Defense Asset Database, a structured database assembled from public sources. It allows us to analyze the U.S. defense economy across individual awards, defense assets, metropolitan areas, and the national landscape.
The framework moves through four levels: award (individual DoD contracts and grants), asset (the core unit — a facility, location, or operational unit), metropolitan area (assets aggregated to Metropolitan Statistical Areas for benchmarking), and national (the full U.S. defense landscape).
Core sources include USASpending.gov contracts and grants, SBIR/STTR award records, the Department of Defense Base Structure Report, DoD laboratory directories, and other official federal sources.
Defense assets are assigned to U.S. metropolitan statistical areas based on the location of the identified organization, facility, or operational unit. For USAspending recipients, geography is based on the recipient’s reported location, not the place of performance. Assets located outside metropolitan areas are not included in metro rankings but remain part of national totals.
Assets are classified across activities, defense sectors, organization types, DoD components, and critical and emerging technology areas. Classifications draw on administrative records, Product and Service Codes (PSCs), NAICS codes, award descriptions, recipient and awarding-agency information, keyword-based methodologies, and curated desk review.
This asset-level database and intelligence tool was developed by New Localism Associates and Punto Labs as part of a broader effort to map and assess the geography of U.S. defense ecosystems.
At a time when national security has become a central economic and industrial priority, defense-related investments are creating new opportunities for innovation, supply chain development, talent attraction, advanced manufacturing, and regional growth.
Strong defense ecosystems are not confined to a handful of established hubs. Across the country, regions possess distinct assets, capabilities, and competitive advantages that position them to participate in and benefit from this evolving landscape. The challenge is often not the absence of opportunity, but the ability to identify, understand, and strategically leverage existing strengths.
Our goal is to democratize access to this intelligence. By making defense ecosystems more visible, measurable, and understandable, we hope to help regions assess their current position, identify emerging opportunities, and make more informed decisions about strengthening their role in the nation's defense economy.