Most Americans do not move to a new community when they retire, but of those who do, many settle in a rural area or small town. During the 1990s, a half million more people age 60 or older moved into nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) counties than out of them. However, not all nonmetro counties are as attractive to retirees as others.

Some 277 nonmetro retirement destination counties have been identified where the population age 60 and older grew by 15 percent or more in the 1990s through net in-migration.

In contrast, only 36 nonmetro counties qualified as retirement areas during 1950 to 1960, when data were first available.

Today's retirement areas are widely scattered across rural America. Warm winter areas have their appeal, but so, too, do many counties in the cold winter climate of the Upper Great Lakes, or the uplands of the Ozarks and the southern Blue Ridge Mountains, especially around dam reservoirs. Other destinations are the Texas Hill Country, both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and many parts of the inland Mountain West.

Although retirement counties are defined only by the growth of their older population, they also tend to have high overall population growth. From 2000 to 2003, their total population grew by 4.8 percent, three times as fast as total U.S.

The high net movement of older people to 277 nonmetro counties came despite the fact that persons reaching age 60 during the 1990s were the survivors of the low birth rate years of the 1930s. Today, in contrast, members of the much larger birth cohorts of the 1940s are now entering their sixties. Thus, the prospect is for greater retiree movement to rural and small-town locales and an increase in the number of counties that can fairly be termed retirement counties.