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Years ago, when I lived in Montana, there seemed to be one license plate: the state’s outline around the edge; light blue across the top representing the sky with the word MONTANA printed in white; then a colorful jagged line of mountains on the left (western) side leading into a flat line as it moved east; and then, in a script at the bottom, Big Sky. It felt like every vehicle I saw had this plate, although I’m sure that was not the case, because Montana has had several standard plates over the years and has been issuing specialty designs since the late 1950s. Maybe there just weren’t many takers?
Recently I was back in Montana on a family road trip and drove halfway across the state, to Bozeman, and as we played The License Plate Game, it became clear that Montana now has about a million different plates, and everyone’s a taker. Nearly every plate we saw was different from the last one—wildlife plates and agriculture plates, natural beauty plates, a quilting plate, every college in the state, the Blackfeet Tribe and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, the Biomimicry Institute. After a while, simply seeing one of those old ones from my memory kind of felt like spotting a plate from Guam. “Ooh, there’s one!â€
I know that every state creates and issues special plates to honor and acknowledge various groups, institutions, or aspects of their cultural heritage, but this felt different. This was like a roadway free for all. My wife did some Googling.
“Montana has five standard license plates…†she said, “… and 255 specialty plates!†I was shocked, because that feels like a lot, and I said as much. Oregon, our current home, has 80, which also feels like a lot. One of them—the Smokey Bear plate—is affixed to my Xterra.
“It does feel like a lot,†my wife said. Then, after a bit of silence and more Googling, she added: “Maryland has the most plates. Take a guess how many.†I could tell by her tone that the answer was ridiculous. And it was. Maryland, the 42nd largest state in the Union, has 989 different license plates. Hawaii offers the fewest choices, a far more reasonable 14.
After our trip, I looked into this a bit more and quickly landed on a story published in August 2023 on the website Beautiful Public Data. My head then exploded, because the story is titled “All of the 8331 License Plates in America.â€
Wait, what?
Jon Keegan, an investigative data reporter who runs the site, visited each state’s DMV site to arrive at this total. “My count was conducted over June and July 2023,†he writes, “so this should be considered a snapshot, as I’m sure some plates have changed already.†Who knows where things stand as of today, in other words.
Check out the accompanying video, where Keegan breaks down some of the odd and interesting plates he found during his research, and the ways in which some of the funds they raise are used by their respective states.
Do you have an odd or interesting license plate on your car, or do you prefer the standard—and often much cheaper—approach to plating your vehicles? Tell us in the comments.