The United States: By Rural, Urban and Exurban Counties

Saturday, February 4, 2012

03/17/2009

4 comments

The Yonder often refers to rural, urban and suburban counties. Here is the map that shows the designation of each U.S. county.

The map below shows rural, urban and exurban counties across the United States. Rural counties are "non metropolitan," according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Urban counties are metropolitan. Exurban counties are metropolitan, according to the Census Bureau, but they have a large percentage of rural residents.

When we write about rural, urban and exurban counties in Yonder stories, this is the map we go by. If you want a high-resolution version of this map, go here.

Tim Murphy

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Comments

24 November 2009 - 2:46pm — SteveH

What is the cutoff for Exurban?

How large a percent of the county population must be classified as "rural" for a Metro county to qualify as "Exurban"?

24 November 2009 - 3:11pm — editor

Definitions

We don't have a simple answer. Basically, however, if more than 50% of a "metro" county lives in a rural setting, we count it as "exurban." There are several indices of "rurality" out there and we used them to concoct the "exurban" category for our maps. As it stands, the federal government, in most cases, defines counties as metro and nonmetro. Nonmetro is thought of as rural. Many metro counties, however, are considered metro because a large number of people who live there work in urban areas nearby. We figured counties where more than 50% of the people living in rural settings ought to be considered something other than metro. In our scheme, they are exurban.

25 November 2009 - 11:53am — pinecitykid