Volume I, General Characteristics, contains data on practically all subjects enumerated in the 1950 Census of Housing. Chapters in this volume were published first as a series of bulletins, Series H-A. Bulletins were published for the United States, each State and the District of Columbia, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands of the United States.

Part 1 of Volume I presents statistics on the general characteristics of dwelling units for continental United States, regions, and geographic divisions, as well as summaries of the statistics for the States and the District of Columbia, standard metropolitan areas, cities of 100,000 inhabitants or more, and urbanized areas. The statistics in Part 1 are summarizations or compilations of data from the individual State chapters.

Parts 2 to 6, the State chapters, present statistics for the State by residence (urban, rural nonfarm and rural farm), standard metropolitan areas, urbanized areas, counties, urban places, places of 1,000 to 2,500 inhabitants, and rural-nonfarm and rural-farm portions of counties.

Part 7, the chapters for Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, presents stats for areas comparable to those for the States.