What Is a Metropolitan Area?

Metropolitan areas are most likely where you live and where you work. Fully 83 percent of Americans now live in metro areas, containing 86 percent of American jobs. Though our daily lives often involve trips between different cities and towns and even states, 94 percent of people in the 100 largest metros live and work in the same metro.

Your metro is all the things that make your region what it is—like jobs, hospitals, universities, airports, roads, media, and sports teams—and ensure that the whole acts as greater than the sum of its parts. (To discover more information about any one of the 100 largest metro areas in the United States, visit our interactive Census Plus website.)