Annex: Defining rural areas
Defra's Statistical Digest of Rural England describes
two ways of defining areas as rural or urban. The Rural-Urban
Definition is a National Statistic and applies to very small areas.
The Definition defines areas as rural if they fall outside of
settlements with more than 10,000 resident population.
The Definition defines four settlement types:
- Urban (more than 10,000 population)
- Rural town and fringe
- Rural village
- Rural hamlet and isolated dwellings (also known
as dispersed).
Each of these settlement types are given a 'context'
of either 'sparse' or 'less sparse' depending on whether the wider
area is defined as being remotely populated or not.
When data are not available at a small enough geographical
scale to apply the Definition, it may be possible to apply the
Local Authority Rural-Urban Classification (known as the LA Classification).
This Classification categorises districts and unitary authorities
on a six point scale from rural to urban. It is underpinned by
rural and urban populations as defined by the Definition.
However in the context of areas the size of local
and unitary authorities, it also considers some urban areas as
Large Market Towns. These Towns serve a wider rural hinterland
and their populations are therefore classified as rural for the
purposes of the Classification. The Market Towns have populations
between 10,000 and 30,000 and meet various service criteria.
The categories of the Classification are:
- Major urban (MU)—districts with either
100,000 people or 50 per cent of their population living in urban
areas with a population of more than 750,000.
- Large urban (LU)—districts with either
50,000 people or 50 per cent of their population living in one
of 17 urban areas with a population between 250,000 and 750,000.
- Other urban (OU)—districts with less than
26 per cent of their population living in rural settlements and
larger market towns.
- Significant rural (SR)—districts with between
26 and 50 per cent of their population living in rural settlements
and larger market towns.
- Rural-50 (R50)—districts with at least
50 per cent but less than 80 per cent of their population living
in rural settlements and larger market towns, and
- Rural-80 (R80)—districts with at least
80 per cent of their population living in rural settlements and
larger market towns.
When categories of the six-way LA Classification
are combined to produce overall rural and urban estimates, Rural-80
and Rural-50 areas are combined to produce 'Predominantly Rural'
areas. Major Urban, Large Urban and Other Urban areas are grouped
together under 'Predominantly Urban'. Significant Rural areas
remain the same, and separate from the other two categories. This
is because the areas do not have a majority (predominantly) rural
population, but they are seen as having a substantial enough proportion
of their population in rural areas to be considered separately
from the predominantly urban group.
- Predominantly rural: areas with more than 50%
of their population living in rural areas or large market towns
- Significant rural: areas with between 26 and
50 per cent of their population living in rural settlements and
larger market towns.
- Predominantly urban: areas with less than 25%
of their population living in rural areas or large market towns.
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