Source: US Census Bureau and Fortune.

Headquarters of Fortune 1000 Companies and Population of Major Metropolitan Areas in the United States

Corporate headquarters tend to be located in metropolitan areas that are well-integrated into air transport networks, or inversely airlines tend to select their hubs based on the level of corporate activity. This graph relates the number of Fortune 1000 headquarters to the metro population for 2006. In general, more populous metropolitan areas have more headquarters. The blue line is the regression line-of-best-fit. Points above the line (positive residuals) have more headquarters than we would expect based on their population. Cities that have a large hub operation for one of the big six US carriers (American, United, Delta, Northwest, Continental, and US Airways) tend have a sizable population and number of headquarters.