This file provides a rural-urban view of 2011 Output Areas (OA) in England and Wales. The 2011 rural-urban classification (RUC) of OAs was released in August 2013. The product was sponsored by a cross-Government working group comprising Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Department for Communities and Local Government, Office for National Statistics and the Welsh Government. OAs are treated as ‘urban’ if they were allocated to a 2011 built-up area with a population of 10,000 or more. The urban domain is then further sub-divided into three broad morphological types based on the predominant settlement component. As with the previous version of the classification, the remaining ‘rural’ OAs are grouped into three broad morphological types based on the predominant settlement component. The classification also categorises OAs based on context – i.e. whether the wider surrounding area of a given OA is sparsely populated or less sparsely populated.
