Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area

The Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area is the metropolitan area consisting of Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Maryland, Northern Virginia, Central Maryland, and two counties in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. It is the fourth largest metropolitan area in the United States after New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

Officially, the area is designated by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as the Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia, DC-MD-VA-WV Combined Statistical Area (CSA). The CSA is composed primarily of two major metropolitan areas, the Baltimore-Towson Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) and the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV MSA. In addition, three other smaller urban areas not contiguous to the main urban area but having strong commuting ties with the main area are also included in the metropolitan area. These are the Winchester, VA-WV MSA, the Lexington Park, MD Micropolitan area and the Culpeper, VA Micropolitan area. Some counties and cities are not officially designated by the OMB as members of this metropolitan area, but still consider themselves members anyway. This is mostly due to their proximity to the area, the size of their commuter population, and by the influence of local broadcasting stations. The population of the entire Baltimore-Washington Metroplex as of 2004 is 8,026,807. The most populated city is Baltimore, with a population of almost 640,000 people. The most populated county is Fairfax County, with over 1,000,000 people.

Components of the metropolitan area

The counties and independent cities and their groupings that comprise the metropolitan area are listed below with 2004 Census Bureau estimates of their populations.