Notes
Rural/urban classifications
Classification systems
The indicators in this website define 'rural' areas in a variety of different ways, with the selection determined by data availability.
The government's preferred level of rural/urban classification is at a small area level. Its 2004 classification system for small areas classifies a small area as 'urban' if the majority of its population live within settlements of more than 10,000 people and as 'rural' if this is not the case. This is a slight simplification because there are actually two levels of small area (see the page on levels of geography): the definition in the main text is for the lowest level (output area); at the next level up (lower super output area or ward), the area is classified as 'urban' if the majority of output areas within it are classified as 'urban' and as 'rural' if this is not the case. Furthermore, within the rural category, there is a further subdivision into 'town and fringe', village' and 'dispersed'. Finally, as well as this 4-way classification based on settlement size, there is a 2-way classification ('sparse' or 'less sparse' based on population density, giving an overall 8-way classification system. There is, however, very little up-to-date published data at a small area level and furthermore, with the exception of the British Crime Survey, none of the surveys used by this website record rural/urban using this small area classification system. The Labour Force Survey and associated Annual Population Survey do record each individual's rural/urban classification at a small area level but this data is suppressed in the public version of the dataset on supposedly data disclosure grounds.
Rather, what most of these surveys do record is the lower tier local authority (district councils, unitary authorities, metropolitan boroughs and London boroughs), often referred to as local authority district. Using the DEFRA 2005 classification system, each lower tier authority is classified as one of:
- 'Very rural'': if 80% or more of their population live in either rural settlements or market towns, where a 'rural settlement' is any settlement of less than 10,000 people and a 'market town' is a settlement of between 10,000 and 30,000 people which provides certain functions and services to its wider rural hinterland. DEFRA uses the term 'rural-80' for this group.
- 'Mostly rural'': if between 50% and 80% of their population live in rural settlements or market towns. DEFRA use the term 'rural-50' for this group.
- 'Major urban': if not any of the above but either at least 50% or at least 100,000 of their population live in an urban area with a total population of 750,000 or more.
- 'Large urban': if not any of the above but either at least 50% or at least 50,000 of their population live in an urban area with a total population of 250,000 or more.
- 'Part rural'': if not any of the above but either between 26% and 50% of their population live in rural settlements or market towns or more than 37,000 of their population live in rural settlements or market towns. DEFRA uses the term 'significant rural' for this group.
- 'Other urban': if not any of the above.
In most of the graphs on this website, the 'major urban', 'large urban' and 'other urban' districts are then amalgamated into a single 'urban' category.
Where it is not possible to use lower tier local authority designations, upper tier local authority classifications have generally been used. This is, for example, the case for education statistics given that education is an upper tier (e.g. county) rather than lower tier (e.g. district) responsibility. Each upper tier authority is classified as either 'rural' or 'other' depending on whether or not more than 50% of their population live in rural settlements or market towns. There is currently no DEFRA classification system at the upper tier level. Furthermore the rules used to classify lower tier authorities cannot simply be applied to upper tier authorities because the 'scaling' rules (the 100,000, 50,000 and 37,000 people rules above) have odd effects. After discussing this issue with the people who developed the DEFRA classification for lower tier authorities, we have agreed simply to divide the upper tier authorities into two groups, namely 'rural' (if 50% or more of their population live in rural settlements or market towns) and 'other' (if less than 50% or more of their population live in rural settlements or market towns). Apart from its simplicity, a key advantage of this approach is that it gives consistent results for those local authorities which are both upper and lower tier.
Finally, the English House Condition Survey uses its own rural/urban classification system, where the surveyor of the property allocates it to one six possible categories, three of which are rural.
These differing classification systems illustrate that there is no single 'correct' rural-urban classification. In fact, there are at least three types of decision involved in any classification: Anyone interested in a more detailed discussion of some of these issues may want to read the technical documentation associated with the DEFRA 2005 classification system.
- 'Level of magnification': as discussed above, the ideal would be small area classifications but most data is only classified at the lower tier local authority level.
- 'Method of identification' - i.e. how to decide whether an area should be classified as rural or urban. The size of the settlement is the main starting point, but, as per the discussion above, the lower tier local authority classifications involve a variety of other rules.
- 'Strictness of definition' - i.e. where to set the cut-off point between rural and urban. The lower tier local authority classifications involve a cut-off point which results in two-thirds of the population being in the urban categories and one-third being in the various rural categories.
Another implication of the discussion above is that urban/rural classifications are determined by the classification of the majority of the population in the area and there may well be a significant proportion of the population in the area who are in the opposite classification. So, for example, a 'rural area' may well contain many 'urban people' and vice versa. This inevitably tends to lessen any observed differences in statistics between types of area.
Lower tier local authority classifications (districts)
As listed in the DEFRA 2005 classification system.
| 'Very rural' | 'Mostly rural' | 'Part rural' | Urban |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Allerdale Alnwick Babergh Berwick-upon-Tweed Breckland Bridgnorth Caradon Carrick Castle Morpeth Chichester Congleton Copeland Cotswold Craven Daventry Derbyshire Dales Derwentside East Cambridgeshire East Lindsey Eden Fenland Forest Heath Forest of Dean Hambleton Harborough Huntingdonshire Isle of Wight Isles of Scilly Kennet Maldon Melton Mendip Mid Bedfordshire Mid Devon Mid Suffolk Mid Sussex North Cornwall North Dorset North Kesteven North Norfolk North Shropshire Oswestry Penwith Purbeck Restormel Ribble Valley Richmondshire Rutland Ryedale Selby South Cambridgeshire South Hams South Holland South Lakeland South Norfolk South Northamptonshire South Oxfordshire South Shropshire Stratford-on-Avon Suffolk Coastal Teesdale Teignbridge Torridge Tynedale Uttlesford Wealden Wear Valley West Devon West Dorset West Lindsey West Oxfordshire West Somerset Wychavon |
Aylesbury Vale Bassetlaw Blyth Valley Braintree Dover Durham Easington East Devon East Dorset East Hampshire East Northamptonshire East Riding of Yorkshire Herefordshire; County of High Peak Horsham Kerrier King's Lynn and West Norfolk Lewes Lichfield Malvern Hills Newark and Sherwood North Devon North East Derbyshire North Lincolnshire North Somerset North Warwickshire North West Leicestershire North Wiltshire Rother Rushcliffe Salisbury Sedgefield Sedgemoor Sevenoaks South Bucks South Kesteven South Somerset St. Edmundsbury Staffordshire Moorlands Stroud Tandridge Tendring Test Valley Tewkesbury Tonbridge and Malling Vale of White Horse Vale Royal Wansbeck Waverley West Lancashire West Wiltshire Winchester |
Amber Valley Ashford Barnsley Basingstoke and Deane Bath and NE Somerset Bedford Bolsover Boston Brentwood Broadland Bromsgrove Calderdale Cannock Chase Carlisle Charnwood Chelmsford Cherwell Chester Chiltern Colchester Crewe and Nantwich Doncaster East Hertfordshire East Staffordshire Great Yarmouth Guildford Harrogate Hart Hertsmere Hinckley and Bosworth Kettering Lancaster Macclesfield Maidstone New Forest North Hertfordshire RuGreat Britainy Scarborough Shepway Shrewsbury and Atcham South Derbyshire South Staffordshire St. Albans Stafford Swale Taunton Deane Tunbridge Wells Warwick Waveney WellinGreat Britainorough West Berkshire Wycombe Wyre Forest |
'Major Urban'
Barking and DagenhamBarnet Bexley Birmingham Bolton Bradford Brent Bromley Broxbourne Bury Camden Chester-le-Street City of London Croydon Dacorum Dartford Dudley Ealing Elmbridge Enfield Epping Forest Epsom and Ewell Gateshead Gravesham Greenwich Hackney Hammersmith and Fulham Haringey Harrow Havering Hillingdon Hounslow Islington Kensington and Chelsea Kingston-upon-Thames Kirklees Knowsley Lambeth Leeds Lewisham Liverpool Manchester Merton Mole Valley Newcastle upon Tyne Newham North Tyneside Oldham Redbridge Richmond-upon-Thames Rochdale Runnymede Salford Sandwell Sefton Solihull South Tyneside Southwark Spelthorne St. Helens Stockport Sunderland Sutton Tameside Three Rivers Tower Hamlets Trafford Wakefield Walsall Waltham Forest Wandsworth Watford Westminster Wigan Woking Wolverhampton 'Large Urban'
AdurArun Blaby Blackpool Bournemouth Bracknell Forest Brighton and Hove Bristol Broxtowe Castle Point Chorley Christchurch Coventry Eastleigh Ellesmere Port and Neston Erewash Fareham Fylde Gedling Gosport Havant Kingston-upon-Hull Leicester Middlesbrough Newcastle-under-Lyme Nottingham Oadby and Wigston Poole Portsmouth Preston Reading Redcar and Cleveland Rochford Rotherham Sheffield South Gloucestershire South Ribble Southampton Southend-on-Sea Stockton-on-Tees Stoke-on-Trent Wirral Wokingham Worthing Wyre 'Other Urban'
AshfieldBarrow-in-Furness Basildon Blackburn with Darwen Burnley Cambridge Canterbury Cheltenham Chesterfield Corby Crawley Darlington Derby Eastbourne Exeter Gloucester Halton Harlow Hartlepool Hastings Hyndburn Ipswich Lincoln Luton Mansfield Medway Milton Keynes North East Lincolnshire Northampton Norwich Nuneaton and Bedworth Oxford Pendle Peterborough Plymouth Redditch Reigate and Banstead Rossendale Rushmoor Slough South Bedfordshire Stevenage Surrey Heath Swindon Tamworth Telford and Wrekin Thanet Thurrock Torbay Warrington Welwyn Hatfield Weymouth and Portland Windsor and Maidenhead Worcester York |
Upper tier local authority classifications
Upper tier authorities are classified as 'mostly rural' or 'other' depending on whether or not more than 50% of their population live in rural settlements or market towns.
| Type of authority | 'Mostly rural' | 'Other' |
|---|---|---|
| Where the upper tier authority is also a lower tier authority (i.e. unitary authorities, London and metropolitan boroughs) | All the authorities listed in the 'very rural' or 'mostly rural' groups above | All the authorities listed in the 'urban' or 'part rural' groups above |
| Where the upper tier authority is a grouping of lower tier authorities (i.e. a county) |
Cambridgeshire Cornwall and The Isles of Scilly Cumbria Devon Dorset Durham Lincolnshire Norfolk North Yorkshire Northumberland Oxfordshire Shropshire Somerset Suffolk Wiltshire |
Bedfordshire Buckinghamshire Cheshire Derbyshire East Sussex Essex Gloucestershire Hampshire Hertfordshire Kent Lancashire Leicestershire Northamptonshire Nottinghamshire Staffordshire Surrey Warwickshire West Sussex Worcestershire |