Columbia, TN Night Sky Brightness
Columbia, TN's night sky, measured from orbit
Columbia reads as suburban edge on this dataset's scale. A noticeable glow near the horizon. Brighter stars and constellations are easy to pick out; the Milky Way is washed out. That's brighter than 15.7% of the 3,206 US cities in this dataset.
Note the source: a satellite reading of upward light, not a visual Bortle scale reading. The two measure related but different things, explained in the Bortle scale guide.
The nearest darker sky to Columbia
67 miles from Columbia, straight-line, sits Clarksville, TN, the nearest city here with a darker sky than Columbia's own suburban edge band.
Clarksville, TN is itself still a measured city, not a designated dark-sky park, this only compares against the 3,206 places this dataset covers.
How Columbia compares nationally
Columbia, TN has a population of about 48,812, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Columbia's position, 500 of 3,206, darkest to brightest, comes from the sampling method the methodology guide sets out.