Ohio Rural-Urban Interface Series: RU-1

Selected Highlights

The following are highlights of some of the data reported in this monograph. More detail and precise figures are found in the report’s text and tables.

• Ohio is the seventh most populated state, the ninth most densely populated state, and ranks fifth in number of rural residents (persons living in villages of less than 2,500 residents or in the open country).
• From 1950 to 1990, Ohio’s urban population (residents living in communities of more than 2,500 residents) has grown 44 percent. Ohio’s rural population for the same time period grew only 18.6 percent. Statewide population grew 36.5 percent from 1950 to 1990.
• In 1990, 74 percent of Ohio’s population lived in urban places while 26 percent lived in rural places.
• There are 15 metropolitan areas (regions with a central city of 50,000 or more) either wholly or partially located in the state of Ohio. The 39 Ohio counties comprising these metropolitan areas contain 44.8 percent of the state’s land area and 81 percent of Ohio’s 11.2 million residents.
• Percent population growth in metropolitan Ohio exceeded that of nonmetropolitan counties during the 1950s and 1960s, but percent change in nonmetropolitan Ohio has been higher in the 1970s, 1980s, and so far in the 1990s.
• Nearly 55 percent of Ohio’s 1990 rural residents (living in villages of 2,500 or less or in the open country) live in one of the 39 metropolitan counties.
• Ohio’s three largest metropolitan areas (Cincinnati-Hamilton, Cleveland-Akron, and Columbus) are comprised of 19 counties and are home to 52.8 percent of the state’s 1998 estimated population.
• For the time period 1950 to 1998, Clermont County grew 317 percent (the highest county population change in Ohio). Warren, Medina, Geauga, and Delaware Counties have all grown more than 200 percent during this time period.
• Delaware County has grown an estimated 37.8 percent in the 1990s, fastest growing county in Ohio. Warren and Union counties have grown an estimated 20 percent during the 1990s.
• Stark, Clermont, and Geauga County had the largest number of rural residents in 1990 (each having over 68,000 rural residents). Each of these three counties are also parts of metropolitan areas.