Rural Urban Classification of 2024 Westminster Parliamentary Constituencies
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).
This is 2021 rural-urban classification (RUC) of 2024 Westminster Parliamentary Constituencies (WPC) in England and Wales. This means that the 2021 Local Authority Districts (LAD) RUC methodology has been applied to the 2024 WPC boundaries. LAD classifications are divided into four categories based on their populations:
Majority Rural: had at least 50% of their population residing in Rural OAs
Intermediate Rural: 35-50% rural population
Intermediate Urban: 20-35% rural population
Urban: 20% or less of the population lived in rural OAs.
Each 2024 WPC category is split into one of two Relative Access categories, using the same data as the 2021 Output Area RUC. If more than 50% of a WPC population lives in ‘Nearer a major town or city’ OAs, it is deemed ‘nearer a major town or city’; otherwise, it is classified as ‘further from a major town or city’.
