Rural Virginia Defined

Are you “rural?”

Federal and state programs that target rural communities, rural health professionals and rural providers have often developed  program-specific definitions of what constitutes “rural.”  This assures that programs address the needs of clearly defined target audiences but also leads to widely divergent definitions of what constitutes a rural area. 

Overviews of how rural areas are defined can be found at:

1. “What is Rural?” Rural Assistance Center:  Health and Human Services Information for rural America
2.  “Choosing Rural Definitions: Implications for Health Policy” Rural Policy Research Institute (RPRI) - Interactive map of U.S. rural areas
3.  “Measuring Rurality” Economic Research Service (ERS), US Department of Agriculture

Maps of Virginia “rural” areas presenting the most common rural definitions are:

• Virginia Rural (Non-Metropolitan Areas) as Defined by the Office of Management and Budget
• Virginia and Contiguous Areas: Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas and Components
• Virginia Census 2000 Rural: Urban Areas
• Virginia Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Low Population Density Rural Zip Codes
• Virginia Rural (Non-Metropolitan) Areas: Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Changes between 1990 and 2003
• Virginia Rural (Non-Metropolitan) Areas and Census Tracts within Metropolitan Areas (MAs) - Designated as Rural based on their Rural Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) Scores

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