What 116,753 tattoos from 5,824 US artists reveal about how America actually gets tattooed — the ink, the styles, the shifts, and the cities drawing them.
Before style, before subject, before city — the first thing the data says is about the ink itself. And it says one thing, loudly.
Full color is a distant second at 23%; the rest blends both. It's the clearest signal in the data — and it holds across nearly every city and style.
Two styles tower over the rest: realism at 23% and fine-line at 20% of tagged pieces. Beneath them sits a long, healthy tail — from century-old American traditional to internet-native cyber-sigilism. Tap any style to see its artists.
Share of pieces tagged with each style. A piece can carry more than one style, so shares are not mutually exclusive. Read realism as representational black-and-grey, the broad mode — not strictly photorealism.
The real story isn't what's popular — it's what's moving. Read as each style's share of its own year, fine-line and cyber-sigilism climb hard while Japanese and surrealism recede. Realism stays on top, but its grip is loosening.
Each spark is one style's share of pieces per year, 2021→2026; the number is its 2026 share and the change since 2021. Early years rest on a smaller sample, so read the multi-year arc, not any single step.
Black-and-grey rules overall — but color hides inside specific styles. Neo-traditional, American traditional, and new school run bright; chicano, dotwork, and blackwork are almost entirely black-and-grey. This is the cut that tells a supplier what to stock.
Style is regional. Each metro over-indexes on a signature style — the one it draws more than the country does. Dallas and Houston lean chicano; Nashville keeps it traditional; Portland goes ignorant; New York and San Francisco skew cyber-sigilism. Tap a city to see its artists.
| Metro | Pieces | Artists | Black & grey | Signature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New YorkNY | 8,503 | 343 | 74% | Cyber-sigilism 1.9× |
| Los AngelesCA | 5,853 | 252 | 70% | Anime 1.7× |
| Las VegasNV | 5,236 | 251 | 70% | Geometric 2.1× |
| DallasTX | 4,729 | 209 | 64% | Chicano 1.9× |
| Salt Lake CityUT | 4,571 | 215 | 70% | Sketch 1.3× |
| NashvilleTN | 4,341 | 221 | 58% | American traditional 1.6× |
| PortlandOR | 3,895 | 173 | 65% | Ignorant 1.9× |
| KnoxvilleTN | 3,742 | 74 | 53% | New school 1.8× |
| HoustonTX | 3,711 | 155 | 59% | Chicano 1.7× |
| AustinTX | 3,524 | 185 | 62% | Ornamental 1.5× |
| San DiegoCA | 3,316 | 168 | 70% | Japanese 1.8× |
| San FranciscoCA | 3,291 | 114 | 70% | Blackwork 2.0× |
| PhiladelphiaPA | 3,242 | 137 | 64% | Dotwork 1.7× |
| SeattleWA | 3,042 | 191 | 62% | Watercolor 1.7× |
| ChicagoIL | 2,912 | 142 | 66% | American traditional 1.3× |
| DenverCO | 2,850 | 125 | 69% | Geometric 2.3× |
| CharlotteNC | 2,547 | 118 | 64% | Anime 2.0× |
| AtlantaGA | 2,333 | 92 | 69% | Chicano 2.0× |
| MiamiFL | 2,170 | 100 | 76% | Surrealism 2.0× |
| CincinnatiOH | 2,119 | 106 | 68% | Minimalist 1.5× |
| Kansas CityMO | 2,058 | 82 | 59% | Anime 1.3× |
| RichmondVA | 2,054 | 83 | 62% | New school 1.3× |
| BostonMA | 1,992 | 80 | 63% | New school 1.9× |
| ColumbusOH | 1,868 | 96 | 65% | Minimalist 1.4× |
| ClevelandOH | 1,761 | 78 | 68% | Dotwork 1.7× |
| MinneapolisMN | 1,651 | 74 | 62% | Ignorant 1.9× |
Signature = the style a metro indexes highest above the national baseline (its lift). Metros with enough pieces to be stable; smaller places are pooled. Coverage is US city-level.
Beneath style and color sits the oldest question: what goes on the skin? Grouped into families, one theme towers over the rest — florals, at 17% and over 20,178 pieces. Animals, portraits, and skulls follow; snakes and dragons punch above their weight in the culture but not the count.
Freeform subject labels (66,175 distinct) rolled into families. A further slice of abstract or one-off pieces is not shown. Families are approximate — a single tattoo can span more than one.
The sample. 116,753 live tattoo images from 5,824 artists indexed by Perspectiv. Every piece counted here belongs to an artist placed in a US metro; international and unplaced work is excluded, so this is an American picture. A large, working sample of contemporary tattooing — not a census. Coverage is denser in some cities than others.
How styles and color are read. Each image is placed by its position in a visual embedding space, matched to the nearest style signatures, plus a color mode (black-and-grey, color, or mixed). A piece can carry more than one style, so style shares are not mutually exclusive.
Where the edges blur. Well-defined styles — Japanese, traditional, fine-line — label cleanly; broad ones collect their neighbors. Read realism as representational black-and-grey rather than strict photorealism, and treat the smallest slices as directional.
Why trends are shares, not counts. The raw number of pieces per year reflects when we indexed them, not when tattooing happened. So every trend is a style's share of its own year — the only figure that reflects taste rather than our collection schedule.
Location. Artists are placed at US city level; the two stored spellings of each city are merged and suburbs fold into their metro. Regional cuts show only metros with enough pieces to be stable; smaller places are pooled.
What this isn't. A snapshot of a living, growing index — figures shift as it grows. Read it as the shape of the craft today, not a decimal-precise ledger.
Perspectiv