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Rural - Urban Maps
The Center for Rural Pennsylvania's definition of rural and urban is based on population density. Population density is calculated by dividing the total population of a specific area by the total number of square land miles of that area. According to the 2020 Census, the population of Pennsylvania is 13,002,700 and the number of square miles of land in Pennsylvania is 44,742. Therefore, the population density is 291 people per square mile.
County or school district definition
A county or school district is rural when the number of people per square mile within the county or school district is fewer than 291. Counties and school districts that have 291 people or more per square mile are considered urban.
Municipal definition
A municipality is rural when the number of people per square mile in the municipality is fewer than 291 or the municipality is in a rural county and has fewer than 2,500 residents. All other municipalities are considered urban.
Applying the definition
According to the Center's definition, there are 48 rural counties and 19 urban counties in Pennsylvania. In 2020, nearly 3.4 million residents, or 26 percent of the state's 13.0 million residents, called these rural counties home.
At the school district level, 238 of the state's 500 public school districts are rural. During the 2020-2021 school year, 374,732 public school students attended schools in rural districts, or 25 percent of the state's nearly 1.41 million public school students.
At the municipal level, 1,649, or 64 percent, of the state's 2,560 municipalities are rural and 911 municipalities, or 36 percent, are urban. In 2020, rural municipalities had a total of 2.9 million residents or 22 percent of the state's population. Urban municipalities had 10.1 million residents or 78 percent of the state's population.
Population Density by County, 2020
٭ Note: Highlighted counties are rural.
| A-D | E-M | N-Y |
|---|---|---|
| Adams - 196 Allegheny - 1,676 Armstrong - 106 Beaver - 392 Bedford - 49 Berks - 480 Blair - 242 Bradford - 55 Bucks - 1,035 Butler - 233 Cambria - 209 Cameron - 13 Carbon - 171 Centre - 139 Chester - 665 Clarion - 67 Clearfield - 71 Clinton - 44 Columbia - 139 Crawford - 88 Cumberland - 432 Dauphin - 511 Delaware - 3,041 |
Elk - 39 Erie - 351 Fayette - 173 Forest - 18 Franklin - 194 Fulton - 34 Greene - 67 Huntingdon - 52 Indiana - 107 Jefferson - 69 Juniata - 63 Lackawanna - 467 Lancaster - 550 Lawrence - 254 Lebanon - 369 Lehigh - 1,013 Luzerne - 360 Lycoming - 95 McKean - 44 Mercer - 173 Mifflin - 114 Monroe - 279 Montgomery - 1,656 Montour - 140 |
Northampton - 805 Northumberland - 206 Perry - 83 Philadelphia - 11,379 Pike - 105 Potter - 16 Schuylkill - 190 Snyder - 121 Somerset - 72 Sullivan - 14 Susquehanna - 53 Tioga - 37 Union - 142 Venango - 82 Warren - 47 Washington - 243 Wayne - 73 Westmoreland - 355 Wyoming - 71 York - 481 |