How many gas stations are there in the United States?

I'll come at this from demand. That's how many fill-ups the country needs in a week, divided by how many one station can handle. I'll say there are about 260 million vehicles in the US. That's 130 million households with two each on average. If each one fills up about once a week, that's 260 million fill-ups a week. Now the station. I'll say one station handles about 2,000 fill-ups a week. Here's why. Picture a typical one with 8 pumps. If each pump serves about 40 cars a day, which is two or three an hour across 16 hours, that's 320 a day, or roughly 300. Times 7 days is 2,100 a week, which I rounded to 2,000. 260 million divided by 2,000 is 130,000. So my estimate is about 130,000 gas stations. That feels like a reasonable number to me.

I'll come at this from demand. That's how many fill-ups the country needs in a week, divided by how many one station can handle. I'll say there are about 260 million vehicles in the US. That's 130 million households with two each on average. If each one fills up about once a week, that's 260 million fill-ups a week. Most drivers probably go a bit longer than a week between fill-ups, but taxis, delivery vans and trucks fill up far more often, so I'll keep one a week as the average. Now the station. I'll say one station handles about 2,000 fill-ups a week. Here's why. Picture a typical one with 8 pumps. If each pump serves about 40 cars a day, which is two or three an hour across 16 hours, that's 320 a day, or roughly 300. Times 7 days is 2,100 a week, which I rounded to 2,000. 260 million divided by 2,000 is 130,000. So my estimate is about 130,000 gas stations. As a check, 330 million people divided by 130,000 stations is about 2,500 people per station. A town of 10,000 would have four, which matches what I see driving around. If anything I'd go a bit higher. Rural stations serve far fewer cars than my typical one, so there are more of them than the average implies. I'd give a range of 130,000 to 150,000.