In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside and city.
Rural areas have unique economic and social dynamics due to their relationship with land-based industry such as agriculture, forestry, and resource extraction. Rural Rural economics can be subject to boom and bust cycles and vulnerable to extreme weather or natural disasters, such as . These dynamics alongside larger economic forces encouraging urbanization have led to significant demographic declines, called rural flight, where economic incentives encourage younger populations to go to cities for education and access to jobs, leaving older, less educated and less populations in the rural areas. Slower economic development results in poorer services like healthcare, education, and infrastructure. Rural poverty contributes to why three quarters of the global impoverished live in rural areas according to the Food and Agricultural Organization.
Some communities have successfully encouraged economic development in rural areas, with policies such as increased access to electricity or Rural internet. Historically, development policies have focused on larger Extractivism, such as mining and forestry. However, recent approaches more focused on sustainable development take into account economic diversification in these communities.
Regional definitions
North America
Canada
In Canada, the
OECD 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
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 Philip Ehrensaft and Jennifer Beeman (1992). Rural metro-adjacent regions are predominantly rural
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 latitude in each province: Newfoundland and Labrador, 50th;
Manitoba, 53rd;
Alberta,
British Columbia,
Ontario,
Quebec, and
Saskatchewan, 54th. As well, rural northern regions encompass all of the
Yukon, Northwest Territories and
Nunavut.
Statistics Canada defines rural areas by their population counts. This 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.
United States
South America
Brazil
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 is 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 do not have any metropolitan regions, thus all of the state, except its capital is officially countryside. Rio de Janeiro is singular in Brazil and it is de facto a metropolitan state, as circa 70% of its population are located in Greater Rio. In the Federal District it is not applicable and there is 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).
Europe
France
15% of the French population lives in rural areas, spread over 90% of the country. The government under President
Emmanuel Macron launched an action plan in 2019 amid the yellow vests movement in favor of rural areas named the "Agenda Rural".
Among many initiatives recommended to redynamize rural areas, energy transition is one of them. Research is being carried out to assess the impact of new projects in rural areas.
[Louis Boisgibault, Fahad Al Kabbani (2020): Energy Transition in Metropolises, Rural Areas and Deserts. Wiley - ISTE. (Energy series) .]
In 2018, the government had launched the "Action Cœur de Ville" program to revitalize town centers across the country. 222 towns were selected as part of the five-year program. One of the program's aims is to make the towns attractive so the areas nearby can also benefit from investments.
Germany
Germany is divided into 402 administrative districts, 295 rural districts and 107 urban districts. As one of the largest agricultural producers in the
European Union, more than half of Germany's territory which is almost 19 million hectares,
is used for farming, and located in the rural areas. Almost 10% of people in Germany have jobs related to the agricultural, forest and fisheries sectors; approximately a fifth of them are employed in the primary production. Since there is a policy of equal living conditions, people see rural areas as equivalent as urban areas. Village renewal is an approach to develop countryside and supports the challenges faced in the process of it.
United Kingdom
In Britain, there are various definitions of a rural area.
"Rural" is defined by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), using population data from the latest
census, such as the United Kingdom Census 2001.
These definitions have various grades, but the upper point is any local government area with more than 26% of its population living in a rural settlement or
market town ("market town" being defined as any settlement which has permission to hold a
street market). A number of measures are in place to protect the British countryside, including green belts.
Asia
China
India
In India a
village tends to mean a small rural area, including both a settlement and its surrounding agricultural land, rather than just the settlement itself, the typical meaning elsewhere. There are said to be up to 500,000 villages in India. In rural areas,
agriculture is the chief source of livelihood along with
fishing,
cottage industries,
pottery etc.
Almost every Indian economic agency today has its own definition of rural India, some of which follow:
According to the Planning Commission, a town with a maximum population of 15,000 is considered rural in nature. In these areas the Panchayat raj makes all the decisions. There are five people in the Panchayati raj.
The National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) defines 'rural' as follows:
-
An area with a population density of up to 400 per square kilometer,
-
Villages with clear surveyed boundaries but no municipal board,
-
A minimum of 75% of male working population involved in agriculture and allied activities.
RBI defines rural areas as those areas with a population of less than 49,000 (tier -3 to tier-6 cities).
It is generally said that the rural areas house up to 70% of India's population. Rural India contributes a large chunk to India's GDP by way of agriculture, self-employment, services, construction etc. As per a strict measure used by the National Sample Survey in its 63rd round, called monthly per capita expenditure, rural expenditure accounts for 55% of total national monthly expenditure. The rural population currently accounts for one-third of the total Indian FMCG sales.
Japan
In Japan, rural areas are referred to as "Inaka" which translates literally to "the countryside" or "one's native village".
Pakistan
According to the 2017 census about 64% of Pakistanis live in rural areas. Most rural areas in Pakistan tend to be near cities and are peri-urban areas. This is due to the definition of a rural area in Pakistan being an area that does not come within an
Urban area boundary.
Rural areas in Pakistan that are near cities are considered as
Suburbanization or
.
The remote rural villagers of Pakistan commonly live in houses made of bricks, clay or mud. Socioeconomic status among rural Pakistani villagers is often based upon the ownership of agricultural land, which also may provide Social status in village cultures. The majority of rural Pakistani inhabitants livelihoods is based upon the rearing of livestock, which also comprises a significant part of Pakistan's gross domestic product. Some livestock raised by rural Pakistanis include cattle and goats.
Oceania
New Zealand
In
New Zealand census areas are classified based on their degree of rurality. However, traffic law has a different interpretation and defines a
Rural area as "
... a road or a geographical area that is not an urban traffic area, to which the rural speed limit generally applies."
Economics
Development
Electricity
Migration
Poverty
Rural health
Academic study
Because of their unique dynamics, different academic fields have developed to study rural communities.
Economics
Rural planning
Rural planning is an academic discipline that exists
within or
alongside the field of
urban planning, regional planning or
urbanism. The definition of these fields differs between languages and contexts. Sometimes the terms are used interchangeably.
Sociology
See also
Further reading
-
Thomas C. Ricketts, Karen D. Johnson-Webb, Patricia Taylor. Chapel Hill: North Carolina Rural Health Research Program, Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina, 1998. 13 p.
External links
