Relative Stratification Efficiency of Selected Area Delineations, Northern Great Plains

Excerpts from the Introduction: Area delineation is often used both as a tool for analysis and as a basis for sampling in economic research. This is true whether the land area being studied is a Nation, a region, a State, or a county. A large mass of land such as the Great Plains has great variety in physical characteristics, in the use of land, and in the institutional arrangements for the control of land. Owing to this great variety it is generally neither convenient nor fruitful to describe and analyze the characteristics of the region in total. The division of the region into smaller areas offers a means of exerting some control over this wide variation so that description can be more incisive and so that divergent trends within the region can be more readily discovered. When the data for studying regional totals are not available, area delineation serves as a basis for making sampling more effective. Many area delineations have been used in economic research in the Great Plains. Little attempt has been made to measure the effectiveness of these delineations in creating homogeneous areas, or in other words, their usefulness. The purpose of this study is to examine a limited number of delineations made in the past with particular reference to their usefulness for county sampling in land economic research and to make suggestions for improving future delineations.