American City Business Journals this week offers an in-depth look at small business in America. Our coverage includes an unveiling of our exclusive Small Business Vitality report: A ranking of 106 cities nationwide based on each city’s ability to foster the creation and development of small businesses.

Ahead of Thursday’s unveiling of that ranking, we’re taking a look at some of the variables that played into the 15-part Small Business Vitality formula.

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A Small Business Saturday event in New York City in November

MARK VON HOLDEN/AP IMAGES FOR AMERICAN EXPRESS

On Monday, we looked at look concentration of small businesses— namely, the number of small businesses* (1-99 employees) in a city expressed as a ratio per 100,000 residents of that city.

Yesterday, we spotlighted the cities that had the highest percentage of private-sector jobs generated by small businesses.

Today, we look at which cities among the 106 markets studied have the most small businesses.

TOP 20: The cities with the most small businesses

1. New York: 557,293 small businesses

2. Los Angeles: 342,154

3. Chicago: 234,740

4. Miami: 180,848

5. Dallas-Fort Worth: 147,526

6. Washington, D.C.: 143,877

7. Philadelphia: 141,395

8. Atlanta: 130,649

9. Houston: 128,519

10. Boston: 121,957

11. San Francisco-Oakland: 121,373

12. Seattle: 97,198

13. Detroit: 95,302

14. Minneapolis-St. Paul: 90,985

15. Phoenix: 88,289

16. San Diego: 78,119

17. Denver: 76,277

18. St. Louis: 71,486

19. Tampa-St. Petersburg: 71,221

20. Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.: 68,869

* 2014; the most recent year for which information was available.

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