Metropolitan Areas in California

On July 21, 2023, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced an update to statistical area delineations based on the application of the new standards to data from the 2020 Census. Please note that Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Metropolitan Divisions, and Micropolitan Statistical Areas throughout this website are commonly referred to as Metropolitan Areas.

• Metropolitan Area Definition and Delineations
• Current Metropolitan Area List
• Historical Metropolitan Area List

Metropolitan Area Definition and Delineations

OMB establishes and maintains the delineations of Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Metropolitan Divisions, and Micropolitan Statistical Areas solely for statistical purposes. These new Metropolitan Areas become the standard geographic areas for which economic data are produced by cooperative programs of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The 2010 standards replace and supersede the 2000 standards for defining Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas. OMB's 2010 standards provide for the identification of the following types of statistical areas in California:

• Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) have at least one urban area of 50,000 or more population, plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured by commuting ties.
• Metropolitan Divisions (MD) - If specified criteria are met, a Metropolitan Statistical Area containing a single core with a population of 2.5 million or more may be subdivided to form smaller groupings of counties. In California, there are five Metropolitan Divisions that combine into two MSAs, one in Southern California and the other in the Bay Area. The EDD publishes data at the MD level to maintain the same geographic configuration for these two MSAs that are currently published. Data for the two MSAs will be published at the BLS website. These MSAs and their MDs are:
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  • Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA MSA
    Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, CA MD (Los Angeles County)
    Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine, CA MD (Orange County)
    San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA MSA
    San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, CA MD (San Francisco and San Mateo Counties)
    Oakland-Fremont-Berkeley, CA MD (Alameda and Contra Costa Counties)
    San Rafael, CA MD (Marin County)
    
  
  
• Micropolitan Statistical Areas have at least one urban cluster of at least 10,000 but less than 50,000 population, plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured by commuting ties. Data for these areas are identified for the counties rather than for the Micropolitan Statistical Area.
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  • Bishop, CA Micropolitan Statistical Area (Inyo County)
    Clearlake, CA Micropolitan Statistical Area (Lake County)
    Crescent City, CA Micropolitan Statistical Area (Del Norte County)
    Eureka-Arcata, CA Micropolitan Statistical Area (Humboldt County)
    Red Bluff, CA Micropolitan Statistical Area (Tehama County)
    Sonora, CA Micropolitan Statistical Area (Tuolumne County)
    Susanville, CA Micropolitan Statistical Area (Lassen County)
    Truckee-Grass Valley, CA Micropolitan Statistical Area (Nevada County)
    Ukiah, CA Micropolitan Statistical Area (Mendocino County)
    
  
  
• Combined Statistical Areas (CSA) – If specified criteria are met, adjacent Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas, in various combinations, may become the components of a set of complementary areas called Combined Statistical Areas. The EDD produces data for the MSA components of the CSA, not the CSA itself.

Current Metropolitan Area List

For historical metropolitan area listings for California and other states visit the U.S. Census Bureau Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Area Reference Files.