Quantitatively defining and mapping rural: A case study of North Carolina

Contemporary research has measured differences between rural and its urban/suburban counterparts on the backdrop of social, economic, political and health phenomena. However, given the ambiguity of its definition, varying meanings and applications of the word ‘rural’ exist. In this paper we explored three different popular uses of the term rural on the backdrop of quantitative data with findings highlighting 1) there do exist statistical differences in data depending upon how rural is defined and 2) the definition of rural provided through the USDA's Rural-Urban Commuting Areas (RUCA) best aligned with other definitions of rural.