The share of land in the United States that is urbanized grew from 2.90 percent in 2010 to 2.94 percent in 2020, according to data recently released by the Census Bureau showing how many square miles of land in each state was urbanized as of 2020. This can be compared with 2010 data and the total land area of each state to calculate what percentage had been urbanized in each of the two years.
Click image to download a 15.0-MB PDF of this map distinguishing urban from rural areas in 2020.
One reason why the growth was so small was that the Census Bureau redefined urban; under the old definition, any community of 2,500 people was urban; under the new definition, communities had to have 5,000 people or 2,000 residences. However, this only makes a small difference — perhaps 0.1 percent — because such communities are, by definition, small. Continue reading
