top of page

Defining Rural and Urban boundaries

I have been involved in both the 2001 and 2011 official Rural-Urban Classification (undertaken for a consortium of bodies including Defra, ONS, DCLG and the Welsh Government). The Rural Urban Classification is an official statistic used to distinguish rural and urban areas. The classification defines areas as rural if they are outside settlements with more than 10,000 resident population. More details about the classification can be found at the following Defra website.

​

The classification itself can be downloaded from the ONS GeoPortal found at the following location. Rural/Urban definitions are available for a plethora of spatial boundaries including: Output Areas, Lower Layer Super Output Areas, Medium Layer Super Output Areas, Wards and Local Authorities.

​

Example output is illustrated below:

 

 

 

Back to Paul's Research page

The 2011 Rural Urban Classification typology developed by Peter Bibby and Paul Brindley
GIS map of the 2011 Rural Urban Classification for Output Areas, as developed by Peter Bibby and Paul Brindley
The Rural Urban Classification Typology
The Rural Urban Classification for Output Areas
The underlying GIS data used to generate the 2011 Rural Urban Classification, as developed by Peter Bibby and Paul Brindley
The classification is generated for hectare cells (100m x 100m) before being aggregated to other larger spatial units (such as Output Areas)
bottom of page