PLACEFIPS is a five-digit numeric variable (see code) that identifies the central/principal city of residence for households located within a metropolitan area.

Description

PLACEFIPS gives the FIPS (Federal Information Processing Series) code for the central/principal city of residence for households located within a metropolitan area. In the official metropolitan area definitions produced by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), every metropolitan area contains one or more "central cities" (in pre-2003 definitions) or "principal cities" (in definitions since 2003). The central/principal cities include the largest city in each metropolitan area by population along with certain other large cities that meet requirements stipulated by the OMB protocols in use at the time. Not all central/principal cities are identified.

CPS uses a custom coding scheme for central/principal cities (INDIVIDCC) that no other data provider uses. To support linking central/principal city-level data to CPS respondents, FIPS codes for the identified central cities were added. FIPS codes were developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the 1980s and have been used by the Census Bureau for decennial censuses since 1990 and in many other datasets published by the United States government (e.g., American Community Survey). FIPS codes are assigned to each place in alphabetical order within a state.

PLACEFIPS codes are state-dependent; they must be combined with state codes (see STATEFIP) to uniquely identify cities located in different states. To determine which metropolitan area the PLACEFIPS unit is located within, users should inspect the METAREA code associated with a specific PLACEFIPS code.

PLACEFIPS codes are available for the CPS samples from September 1995 to the present. For samples from October 1985 - May 1995, the PLACECENSUS variable should be used. From June - August 1995, no METAREA or INDIVIDCC codes were reported in the CPS samples.

Comparability

This variable is comparable across years, but city boundaries change over time. IPUMS does not impose a uniform city boundary on the data, so the central/principal city listed in a given sample should be assumed to have the boundaries it had in that year.

The CPS typically updates its list of identified metropolitan areas and central/principal cities once per decade, usually following OMB's release of metropolitan areas based on the prior decennial census (i.e., the October 1985 Basic Monthly Survey was the first sample using the June 30, 1984 OMB metropolitan areas and central cities. This set of metropolitan areas was delineated using 1980 decennial census results).

Universe

Flags

Unharmonized Variables