NCES Locale Boundaries

The NCES locale framework classifies all territory in the U.S. into four types of areas -- City, Suburban, Town, and Rural. Each area is divided into three subtypes based on population size (in the case of City and Suburban assignments) and proximity to urban areas (in the case of Town and Rural assignments). The classifications PDF File (318 KB) rely on standard urban and rural designations defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, and each type of locale is either urban or rural in its entirety. The NCES locales can be fully collapsed into a basic urban/rural dichotomy, or expanded into a more detailed collection of twelve distinct categories. NCES provides a locale assignment for each institution in its administrative data collections (Common Core of Data (CCD), Integrated Post-secondary Education Data Set (IPEDS), and the Private School Survey (PSS)), and locale assignments are included as an indicator in most NCES school-based sample surveys.

Data and Resources

Field Value
Groups
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • National Provider
  • North America
Tags
  • amerigeo
  • amerigeoss
  • ckan
  • 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 Doug Geverdt
maintainer_email douglas.geverdt@ed.gov
metadata_created 2025-12-02T01:56:09.265642
metadata_modified 2025-12-02T01:56:09.265647
notes The NCES locale framework classifies all territory in the U.S. into four types of areas -- City, Suburban, Town, and Rural. Each area is divided into three subtypes based on population size (in the case of City and Suburban assignments) and proximity to urban areas (in the case of Town and Rural assignments). The classifications PDF File (318 KB) rely on standard urban and rural designations defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, and each type of locale is either urban or rural in its entirety. The NCES locales can be fully collapsed into a basic urban/rural dichotomy, or expanded into a more detailed collection of twelve distinct categories. NCES provides a locale assignment for each institution in its administrative data collections (Common Core of Data (CCD), Integrated Post-secondary Education Data Set (IPEDS), and the Private School Survey (PSS)), and locale assignments are included as an indicator in most NCES school-based sample surveys.
num_resources 57
num_tags 8
title NCES Locale Boundaries