Federal Office of Rural Health Policy Rural Designation
Rurality
| Description: | The Federal Office of Rural Health Policy Rural Designation combines Rural-Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) codes and the Road Ruggedness Scale (RRS) to create a binary rural classification. |
| Time Frame: | Year; 2025 |
| Spatial Scale: | County, Census Tract, and ZIP Code approximations |
| Format: | Excel |
| Source: | Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) |
| Original Repository: | 2025 |
| Living Atlas: | N/A |
HRSA defines rural as the following:
- Non-metropolitan counties
- Outlying metropolitan counties with no population from an urban area of 50,000 or more people
- Census tracts with RUCA codes 4-10 in metropolitan counties
- Census tracts of at least 400 square miles in area with population density of 35 or fewer people per square mile with RUCA codes 2-3 in metropolitan counties
- Census tracts with RRS 5 and RUCA codes 2-3 that are at least 20 square miles in area in metropolitan counties