The Ranally city rating system is a tool developed by

Rand McNally Rand McNally is an American technology and publishing company that provides mapping, software and hardware for consumer electronics, commercial transportation and education markets. The company is headquartered in Chicago, with a distribution c ...

& Co. to classify U.S. cities based on their economic function. The system is designed to reflect an underlying hierarchy whereby consumers and businesses go to a city of a certain size for a certain function; some functions are widely available and others are only available in the largest cities. The system was developed for Rand McNally by geographer Richard L. Forstall and released in 1964. The city rankings are updated periodically in the ''Rand McNally Commercial Atlas and Marketing Guide'', an annual two-volume set, which is available in many libraries. Among the criteria for categorization are retail sales, newspaper circulation, and the presence of universities and hospitals and corporate headquarters. The size of the city's tributary area is critical to determining whether it will be rated a 2, 3, or 4. As of 2006, there are 1492 cities rated. The system consists of a number and a letter. The number reflects a city's importance in the national hierarchy. Nationally important business centers are ranked 1. Regional business centers are ranked 2. Significant local business centers are ranked 3 and business centers whose importance is purely local are ranked 4. the letter reflects its importance in its own area. Doubled letters serve to distinguish centers within a class. The most important center in a market (trading area) is given some kind of A. Other business centers in the same market area will be given B or C depending on their importance. For example, Dallas is rated 1-AA (a nationally important business center) and Fort Worth is rated 2-BB. B cities constitute basic trading centers, while C cities do not. Rand McNally divides the country into basic trading areas (487 as of 2008), each of which has exactly one A-rated city. The basic trading areas are aggregated into major trading areas, of which there are 51. The

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

uses these areas for determining wireless territory boundaries.

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

has always been given the unique rating 1-AAAA due to its preeminent status in the national hierarchy.

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

was originally the only other city rated 1-AAA as having influence over a large area of the country. In 1988,

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

was similarly given a 1-AAA rating. Thirteen cities are given the rating 1-AA as major national business centers:

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...

Dallas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origin ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, and Washington, D.C. Notes: The B and C cities are secondary because they are in the same market area as a city rated A. While those are only abstract examples of the ratings, consider how the system works in practice with the example of Ohio. Rand McNally conceives of Ohio as consisting of nineteen markets (trading areas) with some peripheral counties being contained in trading areas of other states. The table below shows the nineteen trading areas in order of hierarchy. Each has an A-rated city. Some also have other rated cities and suburbs. Example: Ohio The system is applied by businesses seeking to serve a network of customers with the greatest efficiency. For example, a company that services elevators or a wholesaler of paper bags would want to locate its field representatives primarily in A rated cities. The Rural Health Research Center at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

published a report in 2008 on access to physicians in rural areas which uses the system to evaluate access to physicians in rural areas.Ira Moscovice, et al., "Options for Increasing the Supply of Primary Care Physicians in Rural Minnesota," Rural Health Research Center, Division of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, January 2008,

References

*''Rand McNally Commercial Atlas and Marketing Guide,'' 136th edition, 2005, Skokie, Ill.: Rand McNally. A complete description of the system is found at Volume 1, pp. 7–8, and rosters of the ratings appear on pp. 74–87 and 129-131. *Richard L. Forstall, ed. ''Rand McNally city rating guide: a completely new concept in analyzing markets and planning sales and advertising programs in the 1090 principal business centers of the United States.'' Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ranally City Rating System Cities in the United States Rating systems

See also

References