Census county division

{{short description|U.S. statistical division of unincorporated areas of counties}}

{{More citations needed|date=April 2022}}

A Census County Division (CCD) is a subdivision of a county used by the United States Census Bureau for the purpose of presenting statistical data. A CCD is a relatively permanent statistical area delineated cooperatively by the Census Bureau and state and local government authorities. CCDs are defined in 21 states that do not have well-defined and stable minor civil divisions (MCDs), such as townships, with local governmental purposes, or where the MCDs are deemed to be "unsatisfactory for the collection, presentation, and analysis of census statistics".[https://web.archive.org/web/20010304134956/http://www.census.gov/geo/www/cob/cs_metadata.html County Subdivisions Cartographic Boundary Files Descriptions and Metadata], U.S. Census Bureau website, accessed August 16, 2008{{Dead link|date=April 2022}}

File:Census 2000 Block Map DeKalb County, Georgia, United States.jpg, showing the county's five CCDs (delineated by the dark lines).]]

CCDs are non-governmental units and have no legal or governmental functions. Their boundaries usually follow visible features, such as roads, railroads, streams, power transmission lines, or mountain ridges, and coincide with the boundaries of census tracts. CCDs do not span county lines. Each CCD is given a name based on the name of the largest population center in the area, a prominent geographic feature, the county name, or another well-known local name that identifies its location.{{Dead link|date=April 2022}}

CCDs were first implemented for tabulation of 1950 census data from the state of Washington. As of the 2010 census, a total of 5,191 CCDs were defined in 20 states.{{cite web |url=https://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/tallies/all_tallies.html |title=2010 Census Geographic Entity Tallies by State and Type - Geography - U.S. Census Bureau |access-date=2016-04-13 |archive-date=2015-07-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150717101730/https://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/tallies/all_tallies.html |url-status=dead }}

valign=top | {| class="wikitable sortable"
State ! Number of CCDs (2010){{Dead link|date=April 2022}}
Alabama |align="right"| 390
Arizona |align="right"| 80
California |align="right"| 397
Colorado |align="right"| 209
Delaware |align="right"| 27
Florida |align="right"| 316
Georgia |align="right"| 586
Hawaii |align="right"| 44
Idaho |align="right"| 170
Kentucky |align="right"| 493
Montana |align="right"| 194
Nevada |align="right"| 71
New Mexico |align="right"| 130
Oklahoma |align="right"| 305
Oregon |align="right"| 212
South Carolina |align="right"| 299
Texas |align="right"| 862
Utah |align="right"| 93
Washington |align="right"| 242
Wyoming |align="right"| 71

|}

North Dakota briefly adopted CCDs for the 1970 census, but soon returned to using MCDs for subsequent censuses. The main reason for abandoning CCDs was financial. As legal units of local government, MCDs could qualify for federal revenue sharing funds, while purely statistical areas like CCDs did not.

In 2008, Tennessee changed from using CCDs to using MCDs, leaving 20 states using CCDs as of the 2010 census.{{cite web |url=https://www.census.gov/geo/www/2010census/gtc/gtc_cousub.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110411130110/http://www.census.gov/geo/www/2010census/gtc/gtc_cousub.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2011-04-11 |title=Geographic Terms and Concepts - County Subdivision |author=U.S. Census Bureau, Geography Division |date=February 2011 |access-date=July 10, 2012 |publisher=United States Census Bureau }}