Census Bureau August 24, 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice announces the Bureau of the Census' (hereafter, Census Bureau's) final criteria for defining urban areas based on the results of the 2010 Decennial Census (the term ``urban area'' as used throughout this notice refers generically to urbanized areas of 50,000 or more population and urban clusters of at least 2,500 and less than 50,000 population). This notice also provides a summary of comments received in response to proposed criteria published in the August 24, 2010, Federal Register (75 FR 52174), as well as the Census Bureau's response to those comments. The Census Bureau's urban-rural classification is fundamentally a delineation of geographic areas, identifying both individual urban areas and the rural areas of the nation. The Census Bureau's urban areas represent densely developed territory, and encompass residential, commercial, and other nonresidential urban land uses. The Census Bureau delineates urban areas after each decennial census by applying specified criteria to decennial census and other data. Since the 1950 Census, the Census Bureau has reviewed and revised these criteria, as necessary, for each decennial census. The revisions over the years reflect the Census Bureau's desire to improve the classification of urban and rural territory to take advantage of newly available data, as well as advancements in geographic information processing technology.