Changes in the Rural Population of the United States by Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Status, 1900 to 1960.

Metropolitan versus nonmetropolitan has emerged recently as an important residence dichotomy, tending to replace the traditional rural versus urban breakdown. The two approaches are not competitive but rather complementary. This paper presents the rural population in each census year from 1900 to 1960, by metropolitan and nonmetropolitan status, for each census division and region in the coterminous United States. Bogue's ‘retrojective’ technique was employed to obtain metropolitan (on 1960 boundary lines) population for each state back to 1900. The nonmetropolitan counties were then obtained by subtraction and were broken down into rural and urban (using the 'old' or pre-1950 definition). Metropolitan rural was obtained by subtracting nonmetropolitan rural from total rural. The following major conclusions are reached: (1) rural population contained within the metropolitan areas has been growing well above the national average growth rates, while the nonmetropolitan rural has been virtually constant in absolute terms since 1900; (2) About one-third of the total rural population of the United States is metropolitan and this metropolitan rural makes up about 22 percent of the total metropolitan population. Some 64 percent of the nonmetropolitan population remains rural in character; (8) Regional differences in growth rates and in the rural-urban balance within metropolitan and nonmetropolitan populations have been diminishing over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]