On Monday, March 26, the Census Bureau announced the list of urbanized areas and urban clusters defined on the basis of the 2010 Census. The official announcement occurred via the Federal Register, with the notice providing lists of urbanized areas and urban clusters and their respective 2010 Census populations. The official publication date for the notice is Tuesday, March 27; however, the notice is available for public viewing on the morning of March 26 at http://www.ofr.gov/OFRUpload/OFRData/2012-06903_PI.pdf. The announcement of urban and rural areas also occurred via a press release http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/2010_census/cb12-50.html providing information about the 2010 urban areas as well as urban and rural population in the United States and Puerto Rico.
In conjunction with the announcement, the Census Bureau’s Geography Division released the following items:
· Lists of urbanized areas and urban clusters with 2010 population, land area, and population density;
· Urbanized area/urban cluster TIGER/Line shapefiles
· Updated 2010 census block shapefiles with urban/rural flag and urban area code
· Files providing relationships between urbanized areas/urban clusters and counties, places, county subdivisions, ZCTAs, and metro/micro areas;
· A 2010 urban area to 2000 urban area relationship file;
· Census 2000 to 2010 Census population and land area change for urbanized areas
· Urban/rural population by state
· Urban/rural population by county
· Thematic maps:
o Distribution of urbanized areas and urban clusters
o New urbanized areas
o Percentage of population that is urban by county
o Percentage of population in urbanized areas by county
o Ten most populous urbanized areas
These items and other information about the Census Bureau urban-rural classification and urban area delineations can be found on the Census Bureau’s website at http://www.census.gov/geo/www/ua/2010urbanruralclass.html.