Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture. The degree to which areas of wilderness are included in the term varies, very large wilderness areas are not likely to be described by the term in most contexts.

In most parts of the world rural areas have been declining since the 19th century or earlier, both as a proportion of land area, and in terms of the proportion of the population living in them. Urbanization encroaches on rural land, and the mechanization of agriculture has reduced the number of workers needed to work the land, while alternative employment is typically easier to obtain in cities. In parts of the developed world urban sprawl has greatly reduced the areas that can be called rural, and land use planning measures are used to protect the character of rural areas in various ways.

In the United States about 91 percent of the American rural population now earn salaried incomes, often in urban areas. The 10 percent who still produce resources generate 20 percent of the world’s coal, copper, and oil, 10 percent of its wheat, 20 percent of its meat, and 50 percent of its corn. The efficiency of these farms is due in large part to the commercialization of the farming industry, and not single family operations.

84 percent of the United States’ inhabitants live in suburban and urban areas, but cities occupy only 10 percent of the country. Rural areas occupy the remaining 90 percent. The U.S. Census Bureau, the USDA’s Economic Research Service, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have come together to help define rural areas. United States Census Bureau. The Census Bureau definitions (new to the 2000 census), which are based on population density, defines rural areas as all territory outside of Census Bureau defined urbanized areas and urban clusters.

An urbanized area consists of a central city and surrounding areas whose population (“urban nucleus”) is greater than 50,000. They may or may not contain individual cities with 50,000 or more, rather, they must have a core with a population density generally exceeding 1,000 persons per square mile, and may contain adjoining territory with at least 500 persons per square mile (other towns outside of an urbanized area whose population exceeds 2,500).