How do we define cities, towns, and

rural areas?
 LEWIS DIJKSTRA

 ELLEN HAMILTON

 SOMIK LALL

 SAMEH WAHBA

|MARCH 10, 2020

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Aerial view showing urbanization on Luzon island, Philippines. (Photo: CherylRamalho /

Shutterstock)
Because national definitions of urban and rural areas differ significantly from one
country to another, it is difficult to compare these areas across national borders. If we
can’t compare the performance of urban or rural areas across national borders, then we
can’t learn from policies used in other countries. It also means we cannot meaningfully
compare the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals' (SDGs) indicators
for urban and rural areas across countries.
To facilitate international comparisons, a coalition of six international organizations
developed a new global definition of cities, towns and semi-dense areas, and rural
areas. On March 5th, the UN Statistical Commission endorsed the Degree of
Urbanization as a recommended method for international comparisons.
Many countries use a minimum population size to define an urban area, but that size can
be 200 (as in Denmark), 2,000 (Argentina), 5,000 (India) or 50,000 (Japan) or even
100,000 (China). Some countries don’t use a statistical definition but designate urban
areas by administrative decision. In other countries, the sectoral employment or
provision of infrastructure and services is used to determine whether settlements should
be classified as urban or rural.
Finally, once categorized as urban or rural, places are rarely recategorized. Some of this
resistance may come from the allocation of fiscal transfers – consider India, where
getting reclassified as urban may cause places to lose government transfers, or Egypt,
where getting reclassified as urban would trigger additional public investment for
higher-level service delivery requirements, including police stations and courthouses.
A wide-angle view to measure urbanization
We decided to take a wide-angle view to facilitate comparability across countries. By
introducing an objective and data-driven approach to measuring poverty and applying
this approach globally , the Degree of Urbanization seeks to do for the definition of
urban what the $1/day poverty line did for poverty measurement in the 1990s.
The Degree of Urbanization identifies three types of settlements:
 1. Cities, which have a population of at least 50,000 inhabitants in contiguous
dense grid cells (>1,500 inhabitants per km2);
2. Towns and semi-dense areas, which have a population of at least 5,000
inhabitants in contiguous grid cells with a density of at least 300 inhabitants per
km2; and
3. Rural areas, which consist mostly of low-density grid cells (2).

This new approach offers several advantages:

 Simplicity and transparency. It relies on the simple combination of population

size and density applied to the population grid, instead of a multitude of criteria
or complex and lengthy calculations. An increasing number of countries have
their own population grid. Several global population grids have been estimated
and are available for free, including the Global Human Settlement Layer
Population Grid (GHS-POP). The estimated Degree of Urbanization for each
country in the world using GHS-POP can be found here.
 Driven by population size and density. Population size is used by more than
half of the national definitions of urban and rural areas. The thresholds used in
the Degree of Urbanization take inspiration from these national
definitions. However, it uses two thresholds instead of one. For cities, it uses
50,000 inhabitants as Japan does. For towns and semi-dense areas, it uses 5,000.
Out of the 100 countries that use population size threshold, 85 use the 5,000
threshold or a lower threshold. The thresholds used in the Degree of
Urbanization were also tested to ensure that they produce a valid and robust
classification and a balanced population distribution across the three classes.
 It helps monitor progress on the SDGs. The SDGs include a multitude of
indicators that should be collected for cities, urban, and rural areas, including
access to electricity, water, the Internet, and all-weather roads. Some definitions
of urban areas, however, include access to water and electricity. This makes it
impossible to monitor these services in urban areas because it becomes a
circular argument. All urban areas have water because by definition they can
only be urban if they have access to water. For example, the definitions used by
Bangladesh, Cuba, and Panama all include access to drinking water. Because
the Degree of Urbanization does not include services or infrastructure, it can
monitor these services in an unbiased manner.
 It captures agglomeration economies. Because the definition relies on the
spatial concentration of the population, it captures the logic of agglomeration
economies. The cost of service provision tends to increase from cities to towns
and semi-dense areas and then to rural areas. As a result, access to these services
tends to be highest in cities and lowest in rural areas. For example, access to the
Internet and having a bank account both follow a clear urban gradient in all four
country income groups (Figure 1 and Figure 2).
  Cost-effective monitoring. The Degree of Urbanization can be used to
re-aggregate existing data. For example, if a statistical office has measured local
employment rates, then it can calculate employment rates by Degree of
Urbanization. Geo-coded micro data can also be aggregated. This was done for
the Gallup World Poll in 115 countries and for the Demographic and Health
Survey in 41 countries in a new report by Vernon Henderson et al. This allowed
us to show that access to safely managed drinking water is higher in cities,
second highest in towns and semi-dense areas, and lowest in rural areas (Figure
3) in almost all of the countries covered by this survey.

Comparing the Degree of Urbanization with other approaches

As with any newly proposed method, it raises questions, and people want to know how it
compares to existing methods. The main questions raised by national statistical offices
and academics are addressed below.
  Is the estimated rural population too low?

Applying the Degree of Urbanization to the global population grid GHS-POP results in
an estimated rural population share in 2015 of 24%, which is considerably lower than the
46% based on national definitions (Figure 4). The main cause for

this difference is that 12 large countries

classify towns as rural areas. China and India account for half of the difference in rural
population. China’s definition makes it explicit that towns and small cities are not
considered urban, because they use a threshold of 100,000 inhabitants for urban areas.
India uses a threshold of 5,000 inhabitants but combines it with other criteria, which
leads to most towns being classified as rural. A further 10 countries account for 30% of
this difference: Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia,
Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Uganda, and Vietnam. In short, 12 countries
account for three-quarters of the difference between the rural population shares.
In some countries, population data with a high spatial resolution was not available.
Applying this method to a grid based on more precise data may lead to higher rural
population shares.

 Should a definition of urban and rural areas include agriculture

employment?
 Thirty-seven countries have a national
urban area definition, which includes a maximum share of employment in agriculture.
These countries are primarily located in Africa and Asia. The employment share in
agriculture, however, differs substantially between countries and by level of
development. In high-income countries, it is 3% compared to 63% in low-income
countries (Figure 5). Including such a criterion in a global definition would lead to entire
countries becoming rural or urban, which would be an obstacle to comparisons.
Furthermore, this share is dropping quickly. In 2000, 40% of global employment was in
agriculture. In 2018, it had dropped to 28%. As a result, including this criterion would
also reduce the comparability over time.

 Should a definition of urban and rural areas be based exclusively on

built-up areas?

About this series

More blog posts
Historically, the data on buildings had a higher spatial resolution than data on people. As
a result, definitions used buildings as a proxy for the spatial concentration of population.
For example, several Nordic countries define a settlement as buildings less than 200
meters apart. Several academics also use buildings or built-up area – see, for example,
the Urban Extent used by Shlomo Angel, Africapolis and the building density
method developed by Marie-Pierre de Bellefon et al. 2019. With the improvements of
population data, however, this indirect approach is no longer necessary.
Furthermore, the amount of built-up area per capita is closely linked to the income of a
country and will distort the population share in cities and rural areas. To show this, we
defined cities as cells of 250 by 250 meters that are at least 50% built-up and rural areas
as cells that are less than 25% built-up. These thresholds are used in several built-up area
definitions of urban and rural areas.
Compared to the Degree of Urbanization, cities defined by built-up area alone have a
population share that is 17 percentage points higher in high-income countries and 9
percentage points lower in low-income countries (Figure 6). For rural areas, using
built-up area increases the rural population share by 24 percentage points in low-income
countries (Figure 7) and reduces it by 2 percentage points in high-income countries. This
makes built-up-area-based definitions of urban and rural areas less suitable for
international comparisons.

Note: Figures 6 and 7 show the impact of shifting to a built-up area-based definition of
rural areas and cities by income level as compared to the Degree of Urbanization. Figure
6 shows the average national difference between the population share in 250 by 250m
cells that are less than 25% built-up and the rural population share. Figure 7 shows the
average national difference between the population share in 250 by 250m cells that are at
least 50% built-up and the population share in cities. Data used for built-up area and
population is from GHSL BUILT and POP.

 Should a definition of urban and rural areas rely on relative thresholds, not
absolute ones?

Some academics have argued in favor of using relative thresholds to define urban and
rural areas. This could mean, for example, identifying the 10 most urbanized areas in a
country. However, a global definition should ensure a high level of comparability across
both space and time. Comparing the 10 most urbanized areas in one country with the 10
most urbanized in another does not ensure that these areas have the same level of
urbanization. The level of urbanization in the globe is increasing, but a relative threshold
cannot capture that, either. Therefore, relative thresholds do not allow for good
comparability across space and time.
The Degree of Urbanization method classifies cities, towns and semi-dense areas, and
rural areas in a simple and transparent manner. By standardizing the classification
approach and applying it at the global level, it can help identify and measure the
effectiveness of the policies in different countries that improve the quality of life in these
areas. It will also help monitor access to services and infrastructure and other SDG
indicators in a way that enables meaningful comparison and aggregation. This method
will be further tested and implemented in many countries around the globe.
We welcome comments and questions regarding the Degree of Urbanization.
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