Urban Rural Classification - Scotland

The Scottish Government (SG) Urban Rural Classification provides a consistent way of defining urban and rural areas across Scotland. The classification aids policy development and the understanding of issues facing urban, rural and remote communities. It is based upon two main criteria:

(i) population as defined by National Records of Scotland (NRS), and
(ii) accessibility based on drive time analysis to differentiate between accessible and remote areas in Scotland.

The classification can be analysed in a two, three, six or eight fold form. The two-fold classification simply distinguishes between urban and rural areas through two categories, urban and rural, while the three-fold classification splits the rural category between accessible and remote. Most commonly used is the 6-fold classification which distinguishes between urban, rural, and remote areas through six categories. The 8-fold classification further distinguishes between remote and very remote regions. The Classification is normally updated on a biennial basis, with the current dataset reflective of Census Day 2022. Data for previous versions are available for download in ESRI Shapefile format.