Urban Rural Classification - Scotland

The Scottish Government (SG) Urban Rural Classification provides a consistent way of defining urban and rural areas across Scotland. The classification aids policy development and the understanding of issues facing urban, rural and remote communities. It is based upon two main criteria:

(i) population as defined by National Records of Scotland (NRS), and
(ii) accessibility based on drive time analysis to differentiate between accessible and remote areas in Scotland.

The classification can be analysed in a two, three, six or eight fold form. The two-fold classification simply distinguishes between urban and rural areas through two categories, urban and rural, while the three-fold classification splits the rural category between accessible and remote. Most commonly used is the 6-fold classification which distinguishes between urban, rural, and remote areas through six categories. The 8-fold classification further distinguishes between remote and very remote regions. The Classification is normally updated on a biennial basis, with the current dataset reflective of the year 2020. Data for previous versions are available for download in ESRI Shapefile format.

苏格兰政府（SG）的城市与乡村区域分类提供了一种在苏格兰境内统一界定城市与乡村区域的方法。该分类有助于政策制定以及对城市、乡村及偏远社区面临问题的理解。分类依据两大主要标准制定：
(i) 国家记录局（NRS）定义的人口统计，以及
(ii) 基于驾车时间分析的可进入性与偏远区域的区分。
分类可进行二分、三分、六分或八分的分析。二分分类仅通过城市与乡村两类来区分城市与乡村区域，三分分类则将乡村类别进一步细分为可进入与偏远区域。最常见的六分分类通过六个类别区分城市、乡村与偏远区域。八分分类则进一步区分偏远与极偏远区域。该分类通常每两年更新一次，当前数据集反映了2020年的情况。先前版本的数据以ESRI Shapefile格式可供下载。