This
file provides a rural-urban view of 2021 Output Areas (OA) in England and
Wales. OAs are the base level of geography for the 2021 RUC,
and the category assigned to each OA informs the classification for all
higher-level geographies (LSOA, MSOA and LAD). The
2021 RUC is a statistical classification to provide a consistent and
standardised method for classifying geographies as rural or urban. This is
based on address density, physical settlement form, population size, and
Relative Access to Major towns and cities (populations of over 75,000 people).
The classification is produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) with
advice from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the
Welsh Government and colleagues from the Government Geography Profession (GGP).
OAs are defined as
‘Urban’ if they have a high density of residential addresses, or if they intersect with Amalgamated Built Up Areas
(ABUAs) with a resident population of 10,000 or more. ABUAs are Built Up Areas
(BUAs) within 200m of one another and with a direct road connection,
representing larger conurbations. OAs that intersect with ABUAs with
populations less than 10,000 or that have lower densities of addresses, are
assigned to the two ‘Rural’ Categories (‘Larger Rural’ and ‘Smaller Rural’).
