2020 Rural-Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) Codes
The USDA, Economic Research Service’s (ERS) Rural-Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) codes are a classification scheme allowing for flexible, census tract delineation of rural and urban areas throughout the United States and its territories. RUCA codes were designed to address a major limitation associated with county-based classifications; they are often too large to accurately delineate boundaries between rural and urban areas. The more geographically-detailed information provided by RUCA codes can be used to improve rural research and policy—such as addressing concerns that remote, rural communities in large metropolitan counties are not eligible for some rural assistance programs.
The RUCA codes consist of two levels. The primary RUCA codes establish urban cores and the census tracts that are the most economically integrated with those cores through commuting. The secondary RUCA codes indicate whether a census tract has a strong secondary connection (through commuting) to an even larger urban core. This two-level structure provides flexibility in combining levels to meet varying definitional needs and preferences. The RUCA codes were created using census tract data and were subsequently adapted to ZIP codes.
Highlights
- This data product provides a flexible rural-urban classification scheme for census tracts and ZIP codes that is based on the degree of urbanization and strength of commuting ties.
- Following the theoretical concepts used by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to define county-level metropolitan and micropolitan areas, the sub-county RUCA codes identify urban cores of varying sizes and adjacent territory that is economically integrated with those cores via commuting.
- The Rural-Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) codes consist of two levels. (1) Primary codes are whole numbers that delineate metropolitan, micropolitan, small town, and rural cores and their commuting areas based on the share and destination of the largest commuting flows. (2) Secondary codes further subdivide the primary codes, using the size and destination of the second-largest commuting flows.
- The RUCA codes were created using census tract data, and the final coding scheme was subsequently adapted to ZIP codes.
- The census tract and ZIP code versions of the 2020 data are available in separate files. The census tract version includes the RUCA codes and a diverse set of geographic identifiers, population, land area, and population density. The ZIP code version only includes geographic identifiers and RUCA codes.
- Earlier versions of the RUCA codes (1990, 2000, and 2010) are also available. The versions are not directly comparable because of changes each decade to census tract boundaries and census methodologies. Data for ZIP codes were first released in 2010. Puerto Rico was also first added in 2010, while other U.S. territories were added in 2020.
Additional information about the codes can be found in the downloadable Excel file—which includes the data, definitions and sources, and a code book for the RUCA codes and supporting variables. To determine the census tract for a particular location within a county, please see the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council's FFIEC Geocoding/Mapping System.
For more details on the background and creation of the RUCA codes, see the Documentation page. A characterization of the primary and secondary RUCA codes is available on the Descriptions and Maps page. Information on how the RUCA codes can be used to flexibly differentiate between urban and rural areas, as well as the differences between the 2010 and 2020 versions, is available in the Users' Guide.