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The Census defines rural as places with fewer than 2,500 residents. Many residents of towns with 3,000 people consider themselves to be rural, but the Office of Management and Budget traditionally had just two types of counties: metropolitan counties have a core urban area with at least 50,000 residents, and all other counties are nonmetro or "rural" in many studies http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/statpolicy.html).

OMB recently separated the nonmetro counties in the 2000 Census into 674 micropolitan counties, those with a core city of 10,000 to 50,000 and adjacent counties if there is substantial commuting from them and 1,378 nonmetro noncore small town counties, meaning the places inside them had fewer than 10,000 residents. Most nonmetro noncore small town counties are in the southeast and plains and mountain states.

Foreign Born. The 2000 Census reported 31 million foreign-born US residents, up from 20 million in 1990; 52 percent of the US immigrants were from Latin America.

Social scientists examining census data say that one of the most striking patterns is the decline of marriage. One in three babies nationally, and two in three among Blacks were born out of wedlock. Almost 30 percent of Black and Hispanic children lived in families that had incomes below the poverty line.

Americans are mobile, but most do not move long distances. Almost two-thirds of Americans lived in the state where they were born in 2000, but in the 15 months before the census, about 20 percent of the 105 million households changed residences.

Roberts, Sam. 2004. Who We Are Now. The Changing Face of America in the Twenty-First Century. Times Books/Henry Holt & Company