In a little-noticed change, our region now is known as the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos metropolitan area.

Several years ago, the city of San Marcos had been dropped from the region’s name and replaced with the larger city of Round Rock. So, the area’s official name switched from Austin-San Marcos to Austin-Round Rock.

But last December, the federal Office of Management and Budget declared that the area’s name would be Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, based on the San Marcos’ newly defined status as a “principal city” within the region.

What does the name change mean?

According to Site Selection magazine, “At a time when virtually every city and county in America is scraping for better name recognition and more federal dollars, even the slightest change in (federal government) nomenclature can go a long way.”

William Fruth, an expert on metropolitan economies, told Site Selection that the designation of metro areas is based almost entirely on commuter patterns. The biggest city in a metro area always is listed first in the region’s official title, he said.

The Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos metro area—with a population of more than 1.7 million based on 2009 estimates—comprises Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis and Williamson counties.

The Austin area was one of 16 MSAs whose names were altered in December by the federal government. Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos is one of 366 so-called metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) across the country.

The U.S. Census Bureau currently is conducting the official 2010 headcount.

Census information affects the numbers of seats that a state occupies in the U.S. House, and information collected by the Census Bureau helps determine how more than $400 billion in federal funding is allocated. Furthermore, people use census information to undertake such things as advocating for causes, preventing diseases, researching markets and finding pools of skilled workers.