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Annex
RURAL AND URBAN AREAS: CLASSIFICATIONS USED IN THIS REPORT
Two classifications have been used to distinguish between urban and rural areas.
Rural and Urban Councils
Where data is available at the local authority level, each authority has been classed as either Rural or Urban according to its population density. The assignment is shown in the following table.
Rural Councils | Urban Councils |
|---|
Aberdeenshire
Angus
Argyll & Bute
Dumfries & Galloway
East Ayrshire
Eilean Siar
Highland
Moray
Orkney Islands
Perth & Kinross
Scottish Borders
Shetland Islands
South Ayrshire
Stirling | Aberdeen City
Clackmannanshire
Dundee City
East Dunbartonshire
East Lothian
East Renfrewshire
Edinburgh, City of
Falkirk
Fife
Glasgow City
Inverclyde
Midlothian
North Ayrshire
North Lanarkshire
Renfrewshire
South Lanarkshire
West Dunbartonshire
West Lothian |
Scottish Household Survey
Where data were obtained from the Scottish Household Survey ( SHS), use was made of the 6-fold urban-rural classification used in the survey.
The classification for use with the SHS was agreed following extensive discussions with a range of interested parties. The definition is based on postcode units, and distinguishes between both settlement size and remoteness, as follows:
Settlement size
To create settlements, the General Register Office for Scotland ( GROS) uses the boundaries they maintain for each unit postcode. A simplified definition of a settlement is a set of contiguous postcode units grouped so that:
each postcode unit contains at least a given number of addresses per hectare and
the group contains at least 500 residents. The largest is based in Glasgow comprising most of the western central belt with a population of some 1.1 million in 2001.
Within the SHS, settlements are divided into 4 sizes:
Large Urban areas (based on the four cities): settlements of 125,000 or more
Other urban areas: Settlements of 10,000 population or over and below 125,000
Small towns: Settlements of 3,000 population or over and below 10,000
Rural: Settlements below 3,000 population and those not living in settlements.
Remoteness
Drive time data and GIS are used to distinguish between accessible and more remote/peripheral rural areas using 30 minutes drive time from settlements of size 10,000 or more as the threshold, leading to a 2-fold definition of remoteness:
Accessible: 30 minutes or less drive time from a settlement of 10,000 or over
Remote: more than a 30-minute drive time from a settlement of 10,000 or over
Using these 2 criteria, a 6-fold area definition of rural Scotland was developed as set out below:
| Area type | Postcode units in |
|---|
1 | Large urban areas. | Settlements with population of 125,000 or more |
|---|
2 | Other 'Urban' | Other settlements of 10,000 population or more |
|---|
3 | 'Small, accessible towns' | Settlements with population 3,000-9,999 and within a 30 minute drive time of a settlement of 10,000 or more |
|---|
4 | 'Small, remote towns' | Settlements 3,000-9,999 and more than a 30 minute drive time of a settlement of 10,000 or more |
|---|
5 | 'Accessible rural' | Settlements with population less than 3,000 and within a 30 minute drive time of a settlement of 10,000 or more |
|---|
6 | 'Remote rural' | Settlements with population less than 3,000 and more than a 30 minute drive time of a settlement of 10,000 or more |
|---|
This definition of rural was used in the first annual report on the Scottish Household Survey Scotland's people: results from the 1999 Scottish Household Survey: Volume 1 (Scottish Executive 2000).
When results are shown for all types of urban and rural areas (' All'), the figures may include a few cases where the "urban/rural" category is unknown.
Where results for more than one year are presented, data for 1999 and 2000 make use of the GROS 2000 settlement index while data for 2001 make use of the GROS 2001 settlement index.
Further details of the GROS settlement index can be found at:
www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/grosweb/grosweb.nsf/pages/geogrphy
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