---
id: ch1-eu-typologies
type: spine
title: "Where does rural end? Three EU ways to draw the line"
readingTime: 3
standalone: true
core: false
teaser: "A region, a municipality and a 1 km² grid cell can each be called rural by a different rule. Here are the rules, and why PoliRural+ lets the region decide."
parent: ch1-why-rural-urban
diagram: null
recallQ: "By the OECD regional typology quoted in D2.2, when is a region predominantly rural, intermediate or predominantly urban?"
recallA: "Predominantly rural if more than 50% of the population lives in rural communes (density below 150 inhabitants/km²) and less than 25% in an urban centre; intermediate if that share is 15–50% with less than 25% in an urban centre; predominantly urban if it is below 15%."
highlights:
  - "OECD: rural communes have fewer than 150 inhabitants per km²; thresholds of 15% and 50% split the three region types"
  - "Degree of urbanisation: cities, towns and suburbs, rural areas, built from 1 km² grid cells"
  - "JRC functional rural areas: catchments of at least 25,000 inhabitants or more than an hour's drive apart"
  - "PoliRural+ uses the local stakeholders' own definition of rural and urban"
status: accepted
concept: rural-urban-linkages
lang: en
lens: generic
depth: standard
formalism: light
visuality: text-first
lengthBand: deep
genre: explainer
state: edited
carriers: prose|table
---

There is no universal definition of urban. Each country decides for itself, and definitions range from a cluster of five households to an administrative boundary defined by population density and built-up area (D2.2, §1.3). D2.2 sets out three EU-relevant rules for drawing the line.

## 1. Region types (NUTS 3)

Eurostat's urban-rural typology sorts NUTS 3 regions into **predominantly rural, intermediate and predominantly urban** by the share of the population living in rural areas. D2.2 quotes the OECD thresholds:

| Region type | Share of population in rural communes (< 150 inhabitants/km²) | Extra condition |
|---|---|---|
| Predominantly rural | more than 50% | less than 25% live in an urban centre |
| Intermediate | 15% to 50% | less than 25% live in an urban centre |
| Predominantly urban | below 15% | none |

For scale: NUTS 2021 has 92 NUTS 1, 242 NUTS 2 and 1,166 NUTS 3 regions. NUTS 2 is the level that decides cohesion-policy eligibility (D2.2, Annex C).

## 2. Degree of urbanisation (local units)

The **degree of urbanisation** classifies local administrative units as **cities** (densely populated), **towns and suburbs** (intermediate density) or **rural areas** (thinly populated). It uses population thresholds and contiguity on **1 km² population grid cells**. The classification was introduced in 1991. Since 2012 it has used an improved methodology developed jointly by the OECD, the JRC and several Commission directorates-general. Eurostat calls an area rural when more than 50% of its population lives in rural grid cells. In 2020, almost 40% of Europeans lived in cities, a third in towns and suburbs and 28% in rural areas. The range is wide: close to 90% of Maltese lived in cities, and only 0.2% in rural areas (Eurofound, quoted in D2.2, Annex C).

## 3. Functional rural areas

A JRC paper (Dijkstra and Jacobs-Crisioni, 2023) defines **functional rural areas** for all territory outside functional urban areas. It works in three steps. First, rural centres are the largest town or village within a 10-minute drive. Second, each grid cell joins the catchment of the centre with the greatest pull. Third, catchments merge until each has **at least 25,000 inhabitants** or lies more than an hour's drive from its neighbours (D2.2, Annex E). Of the three rules, this one comes closest to the [linkage](#c/rural-urban-linkages) logic, because it follows where people actually travel for services.

## Why PoliRural+ does not pick one

The Commission's Thematic Working Group on rural areas, set up in 2009 to review the 2007–2013 programmes, found that only a minority of rural development programmes used the OECD definition. It proposed **building blocks** instead: physical handicap, environmental sensitivity and socio-economic disadvantage, to be weighted per region. D2.2 draws the conclusion for the project: PoliRural+ is user-driven, so it **adopts the local stakeholders' own definition** of which areas are rural or urban (D2.2, §1.3 and Annex C). The statistics serve as evidence; they do not replace the local definition.

Legal definitions used in EU policy are covered in [defining rural](#c/defining-rural).

**Sources:**
- D2.2 Rural-urban linkages and opportunities post COVID-19, §1.3 Definition of Urban and Rural Areas, Annex C Definition of Urban and Rural Areas, Annex E Definition of functional rural areas in the EU — [PDF](https://www.poliruralplus.eu/docs/140/Attachment_0_57.pdf)