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)
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