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 and any barrio-pueblo with a population of at least 50,000; no entity met the latter criterion. Because of the translation of this word as city, it, like the pueblo, was treated as a place for decennial censuses prior to the 1980 census. For the 1980 census, the ciudad was treated as a special super-MCD entity since it consisted of a number of barrios (MCDs); this type of an MCD was unique for Puerto Rico. After further review for the 1990 census, at the request of the Census Bureau, the Puerto Rico government confirmed that there appeared to be no legal basis for, or function that required, continued recognition of the ciudades for the census, and that the terminology may be obsolete. It therefore agreed that the Census Bureau did not need to recognize these entities. Accordingly, the Census Bureau did not report data for them for the 1990 census.

From the 1910 through the 1960 censuses, the Census Bureau treated the pueblos and ciudades as if they were places. As noted above, the pueblo is a special type of barrio, and the ciudad does not exist as a legal entity. At the time of the 1950 census—shortly after the Commonwealth legally documented the boundaries of the barrios and barrios-pueblo—a pueblo generally reflected the most densely settled part of many municipios, and also served as the historic, commercial, social, and religious center, and the seat of government of the municipio. Since 1950, when Puerto Rico’s population was about two million, urban growth has expanded beyond—in some cases far beyond—the 1947 limits of the so-called ciudades and pueblos. The boundaries of these urban barrios, however, have not expanded to take in adjacent new urban development. For this reason, the ciudades and pueblos have been replaced in the place structure of Puerto Rico starting with the 1980 census.

In most municipios, it was necessary to combine the built-up area adjoining a ciudad or a pueblo to get a realistic view of the extent of the urban population. For the 1970 census, the Census Bureau tried to reflect this growth by ignoring the legal boundaries of the ciudades and pueblos, as well as those of the internal subbarrios and the adjacent barrios, and calling the entire built-up area a ciudad (if it had at least 50,000 people) or a pueblo; the Puerto Rico Planning Board delineated suitable boundaries 7-34Puerto Rico and the Outlying Areas