Cite as: 514 U. S. 725 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
seclusion and clean air make the area a sanctuary for people." Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas, 416 U. S. 1, 9 (1974); see also Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494, 521 (1977) (Burger, C. J., dissenting) (purpose of East Cleveland's single-family zoning ordinance "is the traditional one of preserving certain areas as family residential communities"). To limit land use to single-family residences, a municipality must define the term "family"; thus family composition rules are an essential component of single-family residential use restrictions.
Maximum occupancy restrictions, in contradistinction, cap the number of occupants per dwelling, typically in relation to available floor space or the number and type of rooms. See, e. g., International Conference of Building Officials, Uniform Housing Code § 503(b) (1988); Building Officials and Code Administrators International, Inc., BOCA National Property Maintenance Code §§ PM-405.3, PM-405.5 (1993) (hereinafter BOCA Code); Southern Building Code Congress, International, Inc., Standard Housing Code §§ 306.1, 306.2 (1991); E. Mood, APHA-CDC Recommended Minimum Housing Standards § 9.02, p. 37 (1986) (hereinafter APHA- CDC Standards).6 These restrictions ordinarily apply uniformly to all residents of all dwelling units. Their purpose is to protect health and safety by preventing dwelling overcrowding. See, e. g., BOCA Code §§ PM-101.3, PM-405.3, PM-405.5 and commentary; Abbott, Housing Policy, Housing Codes and Tenant Remedies: An Integration, 56 B. U. L. Rev. 1, 41-45 (1976).
We recognized this distinction between maximum occupancy restrictions and land-use restrictions in Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494 (1977). In Moore, the Court held unconstitutional the constricted definition of "family" con-6 Contrary to the dissent's suggestion, see post, at 745, n. 5, terminology in the APHA-CDC Standards bears a marked resemblance to the formulation Congress used in § 3607(b)(1). See APHA-CDC Standards § 2.51, p. 12 (defining "Permissible Occupancy" as "the maximum number of individuals permitted to reside in a dwelling unit, or rooming unit").
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