The country" and "Rural" redirect here.

For other uses, see Country (disambiguation) and Rural

(disambiguation).

The Barossa Valley in South Australia is an area noted for vineyards.

In general, a rural area or countryside is a geographic area that is located

outside towns and cities.[1] The Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services defines the word rural as encompassing "...all
population, housing, and territory not included within an urban area. Whatever is not urban is
considered rural."[2]
Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas are
commonly rural, as are other types of areas such as forest. Different countries have varying
definitions of rural for statistical and administrative purposes.

Contents
[hide]

 1North America
o 1.1Canada
o 1.2United States
 1.2.1Rural schools
 1.2.2Rural health
 2South America
o 2.1Brazil
 3Europe
o 3.1Germany
o 3.2Ireland
o 3.3United Kingdom
 3.3.1Rural health
 4Asia
o 4.1India
 5Human fertility
 6See also
 7References
 8Further reading
 9External links

North America[edit]
Canada[edit]
In Canada, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development defines a "predominantly
rural region" as having more than 50% of the population living in rural communities where a "rural
community" has a population density less than 150 people per square kilometre. In Canada, the
census division has been used to represent "regions" and census consolidated sub-divisions have
been used to represent "communities". Intermediate regions have 15 to 49 percent of their
population living in a rural community. Predominantly urban regions have less than 15 percent of
their population living in a rural community. Predominantly rural regions are classified as rural metro-
adjacent, rural non-metro-adjacent and rural northern, following Ehrensaft and Beeman (1992).
Rural metro-adjacent regions are predominantly rural census divisions which are adjacent to
metropolitan centres while rural non-metro-adjacent regions are those predominantly rural census
divisions which are not adjacent to metropolitan centres. Rural northern regions are predominantly
rural census divisions that are found either entirely or mostly above the following lines of parallel in
each province: Newfoundland and Labrador, 50th; Quebec 54th; Ontario, 54th; Manitoba,
53rd; Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, 54th. As well, rural northern regions encompass
all of the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
Statistics Canada defines rural for their population counts. This definition has changed over time
(see Appendix A in du Plessis et al., 2002). Typically, it has referred to the population living outside
settlements of 1,000 or fewer inhabitants. The current definition states that census rural is the
population outside settlements with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants and a population density below 400
people per square kilometre (Statistics Canada, 2007).

United States[edit]
Main article: Rural areas in the United States
84% of the United States' inhabitants live in suburban and urban areas,[3] but cities occupy only 10
percent of the country. Rural areas (villages) occupy the remaining 90 percent. The U.S. Census
Bureau, the USDA's Economic Research Service, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
have come together to help define rural areas. United States Census Bureau: The Census Bureau
definitions (new to the 2000 census), which are based on population density, defines rural areas as
all territory outside Census Bureau-defined urbanized areas and urban clusters.

 An urbanized area consists of a central surrounding areas whose population ("urban nucleus") is
greater than 50,000. They may or may not contain individual cities with 50,000 or more; rather,
they must have a core with a population density generally exceeding 1,000 persons per square
mile; and may contain adjoining territory with at least 500 persons per square mile (other towns
outside an urbanized area whose population exceeds 2,500).
 Thus, rural areas comprise open country and settlements with fewer than 2,500 residents; areas
designated as rural can have population densities as high as 999 per square mile or as low as 1
person per square mile.[4]
USDA

 The USDA's Office of Rural Development may define rural by various population thresholds.
The 2002 farm bill (P.L. 107-171, Sec. 6020) defined rural and rural area as any area other than
(1) a city or town that has a population of greater than 50,000 inhabitants, and (2) the urbanized
areas contiguous and adjacent to such a city or town.
 The rural-urban continuum codes, urban influence code, and rural county typology codes
developed by USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) allow researchers to break out the
standard metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas into smaller residential groups.[4] For example,
a metropolitan county is one that contains an urbanized area, or one that has a twenty-five
percent commuter rate to an urbanized area regardless of population.
OMB:
Under the Core Based Statistical Areas used by the OMB (commonly referred to as 'CBSA Codes'),[5]

 a metropolitan county, or Metropolitan Statistical Area,(MSA) consists of (1) central counties with
one or more urbanized areas (as defined by the Census Bureau) and (2) outlying counties that
are economically tied to the core counties as measured by worker commuting data (i.e. if 25% of
workers living there commute to the core counties, or if 25% of the employment in the county
consists of workers coming from the central counties).
 Non-metro counties are outside the boundaries of metro areas and are further subdivided
into Micropolitan Statistical Areas centered on urban clusters of 10,000–50,000 residents, and
all remaining non-core counties.[4][6]
In 2014, the USDA updated their rural / non-rural area definitions based on the 2010 Census
counts.[5]
Rural schools[edit]
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) revised its definition of rural schools in 2006 after
working with the Census Bureau to create a new locale classification system to capitalize on
improved geocoding technology.
Rural health[edit]
Rural health definitions can be different for establishing under-served areas or health care
accessibility in rural areas of the United States. According to the handbook, Definitions of Rural: A
Handbook for Health Policy Makers and Researchers, "Residents of metropolitan counties are
generally thought to have easy access to the relatively concentrated health services of the county's
central areas. However, some metropolitan counties are so large that they contain small towns and
rural, sparsely populated areas that are isolated from these central clusters and their corresponding
health services by physical barriers." To address this type of rural area, "Harold Goldsmith, Dena
Puskin, and Dianne Stiles (1992) described a methodology to identify small towns and rural areas
within large metropolitan counties (LMCs) that were isolated from central areas by distance or other
physical features." This became the Goldsmith Modification definition of rural. "Bhoomeet rural
education The Goldsmith Modification has been useful for expanding the eligibility for federal
programs that assist rural populations—to include the isolated rural populations of large metropolitan
counties."
Health care delivery in rural areas of the United States can be challenging. From 2005-2011, the rate
of potentially preventable hospitalizations for acute conditions was highest in rural areas (as
compared to large metropolitan, small metropolitan, or micropolitan areas).[7]

South America[edit]
Brazil[edit]
In Brazil, there are different notions of rural area and countryside. Rural areas are any place outside
a municipality's urban development (buildings, streets) and it's carried by informal usage. Otherwise,
countryside (interior in Portuguese) are officially defined as all municipalities outside the
state/territory capital's metropolitan region. Some states as Mato Grosso do Sul doesn't have any
metropolitan region, thus all of the state, except its capital is officially countryside. Rio de Janeiro is
singular in Brazil and it's de facto a metropolitan state, as circa 70% of its population are located
in Greater Rio. In the Federal District it's not applicable and there's no countryside as all of it is
treated as the federal capital. Brasília is nominally the capital, but the capitality is shared through all
Federal District, because Brazil de facto defines its capital as a municipality, and in municipal
matters, the Federal District is treated and governs as a single municipality, city-state-like (Brasília,
DF).