The Rural Urban Classification (RUC) is a statistical classification produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It provides a consistent and standardised method for categorising geographies as either rural or urban. The most recent classification used the 2021 Census.
The 2021 RUC is based on:
- address density
- physical settlement form
- population size
- relative access to major towns and cities (populations of over 75,000 people)
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