Database of US metropolitan area names?

Question

I've been unsuccessful in trying to find a US metropolitan area (e.x. San Francisco Bay Area, South Bay, The Berkshires, Upstate New York, etc.) database that is defined by cities.

Does anyone know if such a thing exists?

Wikipedia has a list of "Intrastate Regions" here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_regions_of_the_United_States#Intrastate_regions

Except it would be a pain going through each 50 states, and then pulling out the area's article to find what cities said area is composed of.

The MSA and CSA lists from the Feds doesn't help since its based around statistical groupings and not common names.

Thanks much in advance,

-- Michael

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered May 26 '16 at 12:45

To add more up-to-date information to this post, here's a pair of links on Wikipedia that show complete information on metropolitan statistical areas, including the city names:

List of Metropolitan Statistical Areas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas
List of metropolitan areas of the United States (this list includes "principal cities") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_of_the_United_States

I hope this is helpful to others who come across this post!

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 18 '09 at 19:20

2

http://www.census.gov/population/www/metroareas/lists/2008/List2.txt ?

List4.txt and List5.txt list the counties that are associated with each MSA (and Micropolitan SA). With a way to map each city to its county, would that be enough?

answered Sep 18 '09 at 19:20

mob

117,087
18
149
283

As I said, the problem is the lists compiled by census.gov are based around statistical groupings. What I'm looking for is a list of cities grouped common names. – Michael Sep 18 '09 at 22:15
Common names are ambiguous and subjective. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley, for example: everyone agrees that Santa Clara is part of Silicon Valley, but people can and will argue about, say, Menlo Park or Santa Cruz. The Wikipedia page you link to is about as authoritative as you can get. Good luck with your project. – mob Sep 19 '09 at 03:34

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 27 '20 at 21:57

Census site provides a geocoding service named TIGERWeb. I was able to deduce both Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas from geocoordinates. Here are a couple of examples:

https://geocoding.geo.census.gov/geocoder/geographies/coordinates?y=29.7119708&x=-95.4945362&benchmark=Public_AR_Current&vintage=ACS2019_Current&layers=80,82&format=json

This point is inside Houston MSA. The response is:

{
  "result": {
    "input": {
      "benchmark": {
        "id": "4",
        "benchmarkName": "Public_AR_Current",
        "benchmarkDescription": "Public Address Ranges - Current Benchmark",
        "isDefault": false
      },
      "vintage": {
        "id": "419",
        "vintageName": "ACS2019_Current",
        "vintageDescription": "ACS2019 Vintage - Current Benchmark",
        "isDefault": false
      },
      "location": {
        "x": -95.4945362,
        "y": 29.7119708
      }
    },
    "geographies": {
      "Metropolitan Statistical Areas": [
        {
          "GEOID": "26420",
          "CENTLAT": "+29.7493821",
          "AREAWATER": 3046140233,
          "BASENAME": "Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX",
          "OID": 2625913782255639,
          "LSADC": "M1",
          "FUNCSTAT": "S",
          "INTPTLAT": "+29.7495926",
          "NAME": "Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX Metro Area",
          "CSA": "288",
          "OBJECTID": 767,
          "CENTLON": "-095.3538987",
          "CBSA": "26420",
          "AREALAND": 21413280815,
          "INTPTLON": "-095.3536422",
          "MTFCC": "G3110"
        }
      ],
      "Micropolitan Statistical Areas": [
        
      ]
    }
  }
}

https://geocoding.geo.census.gov/geocoder/geographies/coordinates?y=29.1989794&x=-96.2875396&benchmark=Public_AR_Current&vintage=ACS2019_Current&layers=80,82&format=json

Thise other point is outside Houston MSA (and I've selected it purposely to not be inside another MSA):

{
  "result": {
    "input": {
      "benchmark": {
        "id": "4",
        "benchmarkName": "Public_AR_Current",
        "benchmarkDescription": "Public Address Ranges - Current Benchmark",
        "isDefault": false
      },
      "vintage": {
        "id": "419",
        "vintageName": "ACS2019_Current",
        "vintageDescription": "ACS2019 Vintage - Current Benchmark",
        "isDefault": false
      },
      "location": {
        "x": -96.2875396,
        "y": 29.1989794
      }
    },
    "geographies": {
      "Metropolitan Statistical Areas": [
        
      ],
      "Micropolitan Statistical Areas": [
        {
          "GEOID": "20900",
          "CENTLAT": "+29.2777605",
          "AREAWATER": 21287757,
          "BASENAME": "El Campo, TX",
          "OID": 2625913782255505,
          "LSADC": "M2",
          "FUNCSTAT": "S",
          "INTPTLAT": "+29.2784805",
          "NAME": "El Campo, TX Micro Area",
          "CSA": "288",
          "OBJECTID": 674,
          "CENTLON": "-096.2222023",
          "CBSA": "20900",
          "AREALAND": 2813117310,
          "INTPTLON": "-096.2296745",
          "MTFCC": "G3110"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

As you might notice on both responses, the former one includes valid data on the section "Metropolitan Statistical Areas" but not on "Micropolitan Statistical Areas", and viceversa for the second one.

Database of US metropolitan area names?

3 Answers3

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