# What Population Area Do You Live In **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 20, 2011, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528 "2011-05-20T01:51:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/1 "2011-05-20T01:51:53Z")
This is the technical, legal term, not the de facto area (exact town rather than general metropolitan area) I am uncertain if its similar in other areas of the world so apologies beforehand. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/2 "2011-05-20T01:57:09Z")
Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha ---
**Author:** ![FoundWaldo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dfb087/32.png) [@FoundWaldo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoundWaldo)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/3 "2011-05-20T02:25:22Z")
Is this really useful? People living in Culver City, CA would report 25-49k, despite basically being part of Los Angeles, whose metro area has over 12 million people. Seems misleading. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/4 "2011-05-20T02:43:55Z")
> [@FoundWaldo](#): > > Is this really useful? People living in Culver City, CA would report 25-49k, despite basically being part of Los Angeles, whose metro area has over 12 million people. Seems misleading. What he said. I answered according to the population in my town (about 20,000)…but I’m in suburban Chicago. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/5 "2011-05-20T02:59:33Z")
Well as a resident of the OC, I hate simply being lumped in with Los Angeles. Plus many individual communities have their seperate heritages and characters. ---
**Author:** ![Gleena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b3f665/32.png) [@Gleena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gleena)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/6 "2011-05-20T03:15:59Z")
Yeah, doesn’t translate here well - Sydney is the overarching city with 500K plus, but it’s all suburbs (neighborhoods, not like suburbs in the US) which are the actual community units. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/7 "2011-05-20T03:20:41Z")
well mine was easy. I live in a small town with about 12K in population about 150 miles away from a major urban area. No complaints. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/8 "2011-05-20T04:04:41Z")
The City of Sacramento has a population if 490,488 according to the 2010 census. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/9 "2011-05-20T05:29:59Z")
> [@FoundWaldo](#): > > Is this really useful? People living in Culver City, CA would report 25-49k, despite basically being part of Los Angeles, whose metro area has over 12 million people. Seems misleading. I guess it depends what the purpose of the OP’s question is. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/10 "2011-05-20T06:20:57Z")
The 2010 census just pushed the city over 10,000. ---
**Author:** ![flatlined](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@flatlined](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flatlined)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/11 "2011-05-20T06:21:24Z")
I’l play. There are less than 300 homes in my area and I’m surrounded by Federal owned land. The sky at night is so beautiful, there is no noise, if I see 3 cars an hour on the street, I wonder if someone’s house is burning down. It takes me 45 minutes to get to a grocery store, and almost an hour to drive to work. We all make choices. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/12 "2011-05-20T06:37:45Z")
I guess for convenience’s sake, I’ll just say the Greater Tucson metropolitan area and leave it at that. I live northwest of the Tucson urban sprawl, but the area I live in is in unincorporated Pima County. I live in Casas Adobes, which is a Census Designated Place (CDP), but not an incorporated municipality. It has a suburban type of character, though, with streets, shopping centers, and schools. Not rural, not urban, but just part of a sprawl. It has the unfortunate distinction of being the location where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and injured, along with 19 other people, six of whom perished. ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/13 "2011-05-20T08:00:49Z")
I’m not sure how those terms translate to UK areas (does your city have a cathedral? :D) but I live in Zone 2 of London so ticked the top one. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/14 "2011-05-20T10:52:52Z")
My house is out of town, but I usually consider myself to live in town. So I’m not sure how to vote. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/15 "2011-05-20T11:29:02Z")
Other. Nearest small town of about 200 is 4 miles away. The county I work in has about 25,000 people in it. 4 small incorporated towns. I certainly don’t live on a farm/homestead. Just in the mountains. ---
**Author:** ![Ichbin\_Dubist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ichbin\_Dubist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichbin_Dubist)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/16 "2011-05-20T11:43:59Z")
In rural(ish) New York there are a couple of layers to this. A live in a “hamlet” of about 1,000 people, which is what I think of as where I live but isn’t actually a political entity at all; the “town” I pay my property taxes to has 6,000 residents but isn’t a town in the way people think of it, it’s just a random hunk of county with several villages, hamlets, a lot of woods and farmland, and several examples of what the gummint charmingly refers to as “census-designated places” (which I think means, “Some people think they live there, let’s amuse them”). I voted for the small one because it had no other votes, and I think the small town would be the correct answer almost everywhere else in the world. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/17 "2011-05-20T12:34:47Z")
I live in the Town of Rotterdam, which technically is unincoporated. A town is just a subdivision of a county in New York. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/18 "2011-05-20T14:23:56Z")
Without looking it up, I don’t know what “incorporated” or “municipality” mean in this context. But I live in a town of 250K-ish people. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/19 "2011-05-20T14:47:35Z")
Dude, you need a larger option. My San Jose has a million people in the city alone. ---
**Author:** ![Scubaqueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@Scubaqueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scubaqueen)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528/20 "2011-05-20T14:56:13Z")
i’m not a native hoosier, and indiana ain’t got much in the way of heritage that i can see, but folks sure as heck are finding their way here, which says something. 😃 i live in hamilton county, indiana (second fastest growing county in the usa), in an incorporated municipality called fishers, which has roughly 77,000 residents (in 1980 there were just 4,000 souls). it’s a bedroom community north of indianapolis, which is now about 929,000 and change. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-population-area-do-you-live-in/582528.md?page=2)