Contemporary US metropolitan areas have undergone divergent economic transformation, and as a result labor markets have become the focus of concern in their role as determinants of earnings attainment. Explanations of individual earnings attainmnent as a lobor market outcome have been established in two diafferent stances one who emphasizes personal or group attributes in the human capital perspective and the other who emphasizes economic structure in the labor market segmentation perspective. While remaining at the conceptual level and yet relatively unexplored, the importance of place in labormarket operation is a significant advancement as it appears in labor market areas and local labor markets considering that labor market areas represent the intersection of labor market structure and individual labor market experiences at specific geographic places. The substantive inquiry of this study was to explore labor market characteristics and their differentiation across large metropolitan areas, and assess their effects on the individual earnings attainment. Integating individual attributes and labor market characteristics as major factors of labor market operation, this study intended to contextualize individual earnings attainment with geographic labor market areas. Using 1990 US population census 5% "Public-Use Microdata Samples, " the largest 65 metropolitan areas were first selected and employed male workers who are aged between 25 and 50 for whites, blacks, asians, and hispanics. As an initial step earnings differentials between racial/ethnic groups and selected 65 metropolitan areas were examined using analysis of variance, and then earnings differentials were attributed to the individual attributes such as education, age, and immigration status, and four dimensions of metropolitan labor market differentiation devised by principal component analysis of industrial and occupational segments: Public versus Blue Collar Core(CS1), Finance-Core Utility versus Blue Collar Local Monopoly (CS2), Oligopoly versus Blue Collar Periphery(CS3), and Self Employed-White Collar Periphery versus Low-Skill Core(CS4). As a final analysis, individual earnings were related to each individual attribute and its interaction with metropolitan labor market characteristics to examine how the differentiated metropolitan labor market characteristics alter the role of individual attributes on earnings attainment. The findings indicated that individual attributes, education in particular exert significant effects on earnings attainment, but their effects were significantly altered by metropolitan labor market characterristics. Particularly important dimensions were: Oligopoly differentiated from Blue Colla Periphery metropolitan areas enhancing earnings returns to individual attributes for all groups but minority groups (black, asians, hispanics) rely more on this, and Finance-Core Utility differentiated from Blue Collar Local Monopoly metropolitan areas provide higher earnings returns to whites exclusively. These findings suggest that individuals with identical individual attributes involving racial/ethnic categories would have different earnings atteinments depending on the metropolitan labor market characteristics where they reside. Referring back to the major traditions of the human capital and the labor market segmentation in labor market research, the interaction between individual attributes and metropolitan labor market haracteristics on earnings attainment highlights the complimentary nature of the two on earnings determination in particular geographic places, Hence, labor market characteristics differentiatcd across metropolitan areas are an integral part of labor market operation which should be considered for the explanation of individual earnings attainment and racial/ethnic group earnings differentials. Gcographic places are the important contexts for labor market segmen..