76 Rural-Urban Continuum Codes

76.1 Organization

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)

A classification scheme that distinguishes metropolitan counties by the population size of their metro area, and nonmetropolitan counties by degree of urbanization and adjacency to a metro area
This scheme allows researchers to break county data into finer residential groups, beyond metro and nonmetro, particularly for the analysis of trends in nonmetro areas that are related to population density and metro influence.
Codes for Puerto Rico are available for 2003

Decennial

County-level

All U.S. counties and county equivalents were first grouped according to their official metro-nonmetro status, defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as of February, 2013.
OMB determined current metropolitan status by applying population and worker commuting criteria to the results of the 2010 Census and the 2006-10 American Community Survey (ACS).
Metro counties are then divided into three categories according to the total population size of the metro area of which they are part: 1 million people or more, 250,000 to 1 million people, and below 250,000.
Nonmetro counties are classified along two dimensions. First, they are divided into three urban-size categories (an urban population of 19,999 or more, 2,500 to 20,000, and less than 2,500) based on the total urban population in the county. Second, nonmetro counties in the three urban-size categories are sub- divided by whether or not the county is adjacent to one or more metro areas. A nonmetro county is defined as adjacent if it physically adjoins one or more metro areas, and has at least 2% of its employed labor force commuting to central metro counties. Nonmetro counties that do not meet these criteria are classed as nonadjacent.

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