Urban area

An urban area is a location characterized by high human population density and vast human-built features in comparison to the areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural areas such as villages and hamlets.

The world's urban population in 1950 of just 746 million has soared in the decades since. In 2009, the number of people living in urban areas (3.42 billion) surpassed the number living in rural areas (3.41 billion) and since then the world has become more urban than rural. This was the first time that the majority of the world's population lived in a city. In 2014 there were 7.25 billion people living on the planet, of which the global urban population comprised 3.9 billion. The Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs at that time predicted the urban population would grow to 6.4 billion by 2050, with 37% of that growth to come from three countries: China, India and Nigeria.

United States urban area

Urban areas in the United States are defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as contiguous census block groups with a population density of at least 1,000/sq mi (390/km²) with any census block groups around this core having a density of at least 500/sq mi (190/km²). Urban areas are delineated without regard to political boundaries. The census has two distinct categories of urban areas. Urbanized Areas have populations of greater than 50,000, while Urban Clusters have populations of less than 50,000 but more than 2,500. An urbanized area may serve as the core of a metropolitan statistical area, while an urban cluster may be the core of a micropolitan statistical area.

See also