Tony Wang8 min readWashington State Has Zero Dunkin' Locations. We Checked the Whole Map.
We mapped 14,614 Starbucks and 7,748 Dunkin' locations. The Northeast-Dunkin'/West-Starbucks split isn't a stereotype — it's a 5-to-1 divide in real data.
Most of this series has been about finding something in the data that contradicts or complicates a popular assumption. This one doesn't. The Starbucks-versus-Dunkin' regional split — Dunkin' owns New England, Starbucks owns everywhere west of the Rockies — is one of the most repeated pieces of American coffee folklore, and when you actually map where the stores are, it holds up almost exactly as advertised.
Dunkin's stronghold is smaller and sharper than you'd think
| Rank | State | Dunkin' locations | Starbucks locations | Dunkin'-to-Starbucks ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Hampshire | 161 | 30 | 5.37 |
| 2 | Maine | 135 | 34 | 3.97 |
| 3 | Rhode Island | 104 | 28 | 3.71 |
| 4 | Massachusetts | 706 | 267 | 2.64 |
| 5 | Connecticut | 320 | 135 | 2.37 |
| 6 | New Jersey | 669 | 320 | 2.09 |
| 7 | New York | 1,011 | 641 | 1.58 |
| 8 | Delaware | 58 | 42 | 1.38 |
| 9 | Pennsylvania | 470 | 433 | 1.09 |
| 10 | Illinois | 691 | 652 | 1.06 |
That's the entire list where Dunkin' is at or ahead of Starbucks — 10 states out of 50, and only 5 of them (New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut) show a real, decisive lead above 2-to-1. It's a tight New England core, exactly matching Dunkin's own founding story: the company opened its first shop in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1950 and built out its densest network in the surrounding region for decades before expanding nationally.
Starbucks' strongest states aren't the ones you'd guess
| Rank | State | Starbucks locations | Dunkin' locations | Starbucks-to-Dunkin' ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Dakota | 41 | 1 | 41.0 |
| 2 | Wyoming | 24 | 1 | 24.0 |
| 3 | Utah | 115 | 5 | 23.0 |
| 4 | California | 2,607 | 125 | 20.9 |
| 5 | Hawaii | 52 | 3 | 17.3 |
| 6 | Colorado | 495 | 53 | 9.3 |
| 7 | Nevada | 223 | 27 | 8.3 |
| 8 | Louisiana | 109 | 19 | 5.7 |
| 9 | Arkansas | 73 | 13 | 5.6 |
| 10 | Nebraska | 88 | 16 | 5.5 |
California leads in raw Starbucks count by a huge margin (2,607, nearly 4x the next closest state), but its 20.9-to-1 ratio is actually only the 4th sharpest in the country. South Dakota, Wyoming, and Utah — all sparse, low-population states where Starbucks arrived early and built real coverage while Dunkin' essentially never showed up — post more lopsided ratios than the state most associated with West Coast coffee culture. The pattern reads less like "Starbucks is a California thing" and more like "wherever Starbucks got there first and Dunkin' never followed."
Per-capita: two brands, two different growth logics
| Rank | Starbucks leader | Per 100k | Dunkin' leader | Per 100k |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | 8.97 | New Hampshire | 11.43 |
| 2 | Colorado | 8.23 | Massachusetts | 9.89 |
| 3 | Washington | 7.68 | Maine | 9.74 |
| 4 | Nevada | 6.82 | Rhode Island | 9.49 |
| 5 | California | 6.61 | Connecticut | 8.71 |
| 6 | Oregon | 6.60 | New Jersey | 7.04 |
Starbucks' per-capita leaders are a broad urban/West Coast/Mountain mix — DC, Colorado, Washington, Nevada, California, Oregon — consistent with a chain that expanded as a genuinely national, later international, brand from its Seattle roots. Dunkin's per-capita leaders are exclusively New England and the immediate Mid-Atlantic, a much narrower and more geographically concentrated growth pattern even after seven decades in business. Two very different expansion strategies, both still fully visible in where the stores actually are today.
How we did this, and the caveats
Every number above comes from a live search/facets call against Crawlora's Google Maps business dataset, 2026-08-27 snapshot, cross-referenced against US Census Bureau Vintage 2025 (July 1, 2025) state population estimates.
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Brand totals | q="Starbucks" (14,614) and q="Dunkin" (7,748) within category=coffee_shop, both sample-verified 10/10 clean |
| State-level ratios | Computed directly from each brand's state-level facet count within category=coffee_shop |
| Per-capita rankings | Same state-level facet counts divided by Census Vintage 2025 state population estimates |
Caveats worth stating plainly: this measures store count, not size, drive-thru format, or sales volume — a small Dunkin' kiosk and a large two-story Starbucks Reserve location count identically here. Some Starbucks and Dunkin' locations operate inside other retailers (grocery stores, airports, college campuses, gas stations) under licensing agreements rather than as standalone company or franchise locations; this dataset doesn't distinguish those categories of location. Zero Dunkin' locations in a state's facet doesn't guarantee absolute zero physical locations — it means none showed up in this dataset's current category=coffee_shop records for that state, which is very likely a genuine reflection of Dunkin's real expansion footprint given how consistently the surrounding data supports it, but isn't independently audited against Dunkin's own corporate store list. And as with every study on this dataset: it's live-growing, so a re-pull months from now may show incremental shifts as both chains continue opening and closing locations.
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Frequently asked questions
Is the Starbucks-vs-Dunkin' regional rivalry real or just a stereotype?
It's real and sharply defined in the data. New Hampshire has 5.37 Dunkin' locations for every Starbucks; California has 20.9 Starbucks locations for every Dunkin'. Only 10 of 50 states show Dunkin' at parity or ahead of Starbucks, and just 5 of those (New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut) show a decisive lead above 2-to-1 — a tight New England cluster matching Dunkin's 1950 founding in Quincy, Massachusetts.
Which states have no Dunkin' locations at all?
Six states show zero Dunkin' locations in this dataset despite active Starbucks presence: Washington (Starbucks' own home state, founded in Seattle in 1971), Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and North Dakota. That's the entire Pacific Northwest plus a chunk of the Northern Rockies with no Dunkin' footprint.
Which state has the strongest Starbucks presence relative to Dunkin'?
South Dakota, at 41.0 Starbucks locations per Dunkin' location — ahead of Wyoming (24-to-1), Utah (23-to-1), and even California (20.9-to-1), the state most associated with West Coast coffee culture. The pattern is less about coastal identity and more about sparse Mountain West states where Starbucks arrived early and Dunkin' simply never expanded.
How many Starbucks and Dunkin' locations are there in the US?
14,614 Starbucks and 7,748 Dunkin' locations nationally within Google Maps' category=coffee_shop, both independently verified clean via direct text search (10 of 10 sampled records genuine for each brand, with no contamination from generic words the way other categories in this series have shown).
Do Starbucks and Dunkin' follow the same per-capita growth pattern?
No. Starbucks' per-capita leaders (DC, Colorado, Washington, Nevada, California, Oregon) are a broad national and West Coast mix, consistent with an early-national expansion strategy. Dunkin's per-capita leaders (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut) are exclusively New England and the immediate Mid-Atlantic — a much narrower geographic concentration even after over seven decades in business.