rural-urban-continuum-codes

is a Data Source.

The Rural-Urban Continuum Codes (RUCC) are a classification scheme from the USDA Economic Research Service that distinguishes US counties by their metropolitan or nonmetropolitan status and degree of urbanization. Metro counties are classified by the population size of their metro area, and nonmetro counties are classified by degree of urbanization and adjacency to a metro area. The codes provide a county-level measure of rurality widely used for socioeconomic and geographic analysis. RUCC serves as an upstream source for the Cancer Registry KG, supporting socioeconomic and geographic linkage.

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public health, agriculture, general

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Product Summary

Products

From this Resource
ID Name URL Category Format Description
rural-urban-continuum-codes.ers-page USDA ERS Rural-Urban Continuum Codes data page rural-urban-continuum-codes GraphicalInterface http USDA ERS Rural-Urban Continuum Codes ...
From other Resources
ID Name URL Category Format Relation Description
cancer-registry-kg.cdi Concentrated Disadvantage Index Integration PMC8324069 Product had primary source Linked neighborhood concentrated disa...
ruralkg.graph Rural Resilience KG graph rural-kg GraphProduct ttl had primary source The Rural Resilience KG graph, a cros...

Details

Description

The Rural-Urban Continuum Codes (RUCC) are a county-level classification scheme maintained by the USDA Economic Research Service (ERS). They sort US counties into a continuum that distinguishes metropolitan from nonmetropolitan status and captures the degree of urbanization. Metro counties are grouped by the population size of their metro area, while nonmetro counties are distinguished by degree of urbanization and whether they are adjacent to a metro area.

RUCC is a long-standing, widely adopted measure of rurality used in socioeconomic and geographic research. In the KG-Registry it is recorded as an upstream source of the Cancer Registry KG, where it supports socioeconomic and geographic linkage of county-level data.

Products

  • USDA ERS Rural-Urban Continuum Codes data page — the official ERS data product page with documentation, methodology, and downloadable county-level RUCC datasets.

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Created: June 18, 2026 | Last modified: June 18, 2026