The cities are: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, Tampa and Washington D.C.

The USA Bid Committee announced the cities after an eight-month selection process. A set of 21 key criteria was used to reduce an initial list of 27 cities to the final 18, the maximum allowed by FIFA in the bid book.

Four host cities of the only-ever World Cup organised by the United States, in 1994, did not make the cut: Chicago, Detroit, Orlando and San Francisco.

All four time zones are represented in bid and 12 of the stadiums have capacities between 75,000 and 94,000.