Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Urban Areas

Metadata Updated: October 15, 2025

The Urban Areas dataset was compiled on January 01, 2025 from the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division and is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT)/Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD). This resource is a member of a series. The TIGER/Line shapefiles and related database files (.dbf) are an extract of selected geographic and cartographic information from the U.S. Census Bureau's Master Address File / Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) System (MTS). The MTS represents a seamless national file with no overlaps or gaps between parts, however, each TIGER/Line shapefile is designed to stand alone as an independent data set, or they can be combined to cover the entire nation. After each decennial census, the Census Bureau delineates urban areas that represent densely developed territory, encompassing residential, commercial, and other nonresidential urban land uses. In general, this territory consists of areas of high population density and urban land use resulting in a representation of the urban footprint. There are 2,644 Urban Areas (UAs) in this data release with either a minimum population of 5,000 or a housing unit count of 2,000 units. Each urban area is identified by a five-character numeric census code that may contain leading zeros. A data dictionary, or other source of attribute information, is accessible at https://doi.org/10.21949/1529088

Access & Use Information

License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Date October 14, 2025
Metadata Created Date August 3, 2024
Metadata Updated Date October 15, 2025
Reference Date(s) July 1, 1997 (creation), September 22, 2025 (revision)
Frequency Of Update notPlanned

Metadata Source

Harvested from National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD) Metadata

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Date October 14, 2025
Metadata Created Date August 3, 2024
Metadata Updated Date October 15, 2025
Reference Date(s) July 1, 1997 (creation), September 22, 2025 (revision)
Responsible Party U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division (Point of Contact)
Contact Email
Guid Urban Areas
Access Constraints Access Constraints: unrestricted
Coupled Resource
Frequency Of Update notPlanned
Harvest Object Id 8e6d1fe2-c2fd-4c02-8d02-c0bf072e5450
Harvest Source Id ee45e034-47c1-4a61-a3ec-de75031e6865
Harvest Source Title National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD) Metadata
Licence he TIGER/Line Shapefile products are not copyrighted however TIGER/Line and Census TIGER are registered trademarks of the U.S. Census Bureau. These products are free to use in a product or publication, however acknowledgement must be given to the U.S. Census Bureau as the source. The boundary information in the TIGER/Line Shapefiles are for statistical data collection and tabulation purposes only; their depiction and designation for statistical purposes does not constitute a determination of jurisdictional authority or rights of ownership or entitlement and they are not legal land descriptions. Coordinates in the TIGER/Line shapefiles have six implied decimal places, but the positional accuracy of these coordinates is not as great as the six decimal places suggest.
Lineage
Metadata Language eng; USA
Metadata Type geospatial
Progress onGoing
Spatial Data Service Type
Spatial Reference System 3857
Spatial Harvester True

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.