2011 Census - Rural and urban population

2011 Census Population distributed to 2011 Rural-Urban Classification (England and Wales)

This classification allows summary outputs to be produced by rural-urban type at local authority, region and country level (it will not work with other geography types).

The outputs are based on a rural-urban classification of output areas. The 2011 classification is a revised version of the one created after the 2001 Census with additional detail in the urban domain.

Output areas are treated as urban if they were allocated to a 2011 built-up area with a population of 10,000 or more people. The urban domain is sub-divided into three broad morphological types based on the predominant settlement component. As with the previous version of the classification, the remaining rural output areas are grouped into three broad morphological types based on the predominant settlement component.

The classification also categorises output areas based on context - i.e. whether the wider surrounding area of a given output area is sparsely populated or less sparsely populated. No areas in Surrey are regarded as sparsely populated.

The classification of output areas and a User Guide which provides further details about the methodology can be downloaded from the Open ONS Geography Portal under the Download Products tab.

2004 data is the 2001 Census data distributed to 2004 Rural-Urban Classification

Frequency: N/A - One off