Definitions of Rural Area
Rural definitions are numerous, to the point where some have said “there are almost as many definitions of rural as there are researchers”. Despite increasing attempts to delineate rural from urban, no internationally recognized efforts have emerged. It would appear that several countries, including Canada, the United-States, the United Kingdom,India,Zambia,South Africa,Bangladesh,Pakistan,Afghanistan,Canada,Chile,Argentina, Sri Lanka, Myanmar,China,Russia,Scotland,Ireland,Greenland,Iceland,Mongolia,Oman,Saudi Arabia, Abudhabi, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand have developed their own formulas to defining ‘rural’. Variations of this definition, even within the same country, have been somewhat problematic. Different formulas provide different numbers. For instance, depending on which definition is applied, Canada’s rural population varies from 22 to 38 percent. While in the United-States, it varies from 17 to 63 percent.
Most rural definitions have been based on geographical concepts, also referred to as “technical definitions”. These have included measures such as population size, population density, and distance from an urban centre, settlement patterns, labor market influences, and postal codes. Based on these concepts, there would appear to be six definitions of rural in Canada, nine in the United-States, two in the United-Kingdom, three in Australia and one in New Zealand. Further adding to the complexity of studying rural health is that certain areas share a common denomination by definition, but are very different places to live in.
Read more about this topic: Rural Health
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