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    • Rural Definitions

    Metadata Updated: April 21, 2025

    Note: Updates to this data product are discontinued. Dozens of definitions are currently used by Federal and State agencies, researchers, and policymakers. The ERS Rural Definitions data product allows users to make comparisons among nine representative rural definitions.

    Methods of designating the urban periphery range from the use of municipal boundaries to definitions based on counties. Definitions based on municipal boundaries may classify as rural much of what would typically be considered suburban. Definitions that delineate the urban periphery based on counties may include extensive segments of a county that many would consider rural.

    We have selected a representative set of nine alternative rural definitions and compare social and economic indicators from the 2000 decennial census across the nine definitions. We chose socioeconomic indicators (population, education, poverty, etc.) that are commonly used to highlight differences between urban and rural areas.

    Access & Use Information

    Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: Creative Commons CCZero

    Downloads & Resources

    References

    http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/rural-definitions/background.aspx

    Dates

    Metadata Created Date November 10, 2020
    Metadata Updated Date April 21, 2025

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from USDA JSON

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date November 10, 2020
    Metadata Updated Date April 21, 2025
    Publisher Economic Research Service, Department of Agriculture
    Maintainer
    Identifier USDA-ERS-00085
    Data First Published 2019-03-26
    Data Last Modified 2019-03-26
    Public Access Level public
    Bureau Code 005:13
    Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
    Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
    Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
    Data Dictionary http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/rural-definitions/data-documentation-and-methods.aspx
    Harvest Object Id c0676b45-0e99-4b94-863d-f199050d5d8d
    Harvest Source Id d3fafa34-0cb9-48f1-ab1d-5b5fdc783806
    Harvest Source Title USDA JSON
    Homepage URL http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/rural-definitions.aspx
    License https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
    Old Spatial United States
    Program Code 005:041
    Related Documents http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/rural-definitions/background.aspx
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash 10189c672f9d5be43ad5287e52d7d121e00b230bde706adacbdeb07cbf186c5b
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial {"type":"Polygon","coordinates":-124.733253,24.544245,-124.733253,49.388611,-66.954811,49.388611,-66.954811,24.544245,-124.733253,24.544245}

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