Rural Definitions Where does Urban end and Rural begin?

September 10, 2007

The classification of people and territory as rural poses a number of challenges for researchers, policy makers, and program managers throughout the Federal system and beyond. Most Americans share a common image of rural—open countryside and small towns at some distance from large urban centers—but disagree on where and how to draw the line between rural and urban. Drawing such a line requires answering two questions:

* At what population threshold do rural places become urban?

* Where along the urban periphery do suburbs give way to rural territory?

Full Story: http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/RuralDefinitions/