County Typology Codes

An area's economic and social characteristics have significant effects on its development and need for various types of public programs. To provide policy-relevant information about diverse county conditions to policymakers, public officials, and researchers, ERS has developed a set of county-level typology codes that captures differences in economic and social characteristics.

The 2004 County Typology codes classify all U.S. counties according to six non-overlapping categories of economic dependence and seven overlapping categories of policy-relevant themes. The economic types include farming, mining, manufacturing, services, Federal/State government, and unspecialized counties. The policy types include housing stress, low education, low employment, persistent poverty, population loss, nonmetro recreation, and retirement destination. In addition, a code identifying counties with persistent child poverty is available.

An update of the County Typology codes is planned for 2014.

Data and Resources

Field Value
accessLevel public
bureauCode {005:13}
catalog_@context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
catalog_conformsTo https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
catalog_describedBy https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
describedBy http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/county-typology-codes/documentation.aspx
identifier USDA-ERS-00061
issued 2019-10-23
license https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
modified 2019-10-23
programCode {005:041}
publisher Economic Research Service, Department of Agriculture
references {http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/county-typology-codes/descriptions-and-maps.aspx}
resource-type Dataset
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash bbe4db31bf568accba2b25329d89039c294d6f99
source_schema_version 1.1
Groups
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • National Provider
  • North America
Tags
  • amerigeo
  • amerigeoss
  • ckan
  • county-classifications
  • economics
  • geo
  • geoss
  • national
  • north-america
  • united-states
isopen True
license_id cc-zero
license_title Creative Commons CCZero
license_url http://www.opendefinition.org/licenses/cc-zero
maintainer John Pender
maintainer_email jpender@ers.usda.gov
metadata_created 2025-11-22T18:28:05.556344
metadata_modified 2025-11-22T18:28:05.556348
notes An area's economic and social characteristics have significant effects on its development and need for various types of public programs. To provide policy-relevant information about diverse county conditions to policymakers, public officials, and researchers, ERS has developed a set of county-level typology codes that captures differences in economic and social characteristics. The 2004 County Typology codes classify all U.S. counties according to six non-overlapping categories of economic dependence and seven overlapping categories of policy-relevant themes. The economic types include farming, mining, manufacturing, services, Federal/State government, and unspecialized counties. The policy types include housing stress, low education, low employment, persistent poverty, population loss, nonmetro recreation, and retirement destination. In addition, a code identifying counties with persistent child poverty is available. An update of the County Typology codes is planned for 2014.
num_resources 1
num_tags 10
title County Typology Codes