5. Classifying Other Geographies and Land Area calculations

The Scottish Government Urban Rural Classification can be used to classify other geographies as urban, rural and remote.  However, due to the detail of the boundaries, a direct link to the classification is only advisable to geographies that are smaller in area.  As part of creating the classification, the Scottish Government provides look-up tables for postcodes, Census Output Areas and Data Zones to the Urban Rural Classification.  When applying the classification to other geographies, users are encouraged to make use of the smallest geography possible (i.e. postcodes).

Please note; the Postcode 2024_2 to SGUR_2022 lookup will only be available as a supporting document temporarily.  This is due to a new release of NRS Scottish Postcode Directory (SPD) which will be published in early 2025.  If the Postcode 2024_2 to SGUR_2022 lookup is not available as a supporting document, users are advised to access the latest SPD from the NRS website, which will have a postcode to SGUR 2022 lookup incorporated. Where larger geographies are concerned (i.e. Local Authority), it is more meaningful to show the proportion of the population living in each of the 6- and 8-fold categories.  Applying the classification rigidly to these geographies would result in the detail of the classification being lost in aggregation, and likely result in Scotland appearing more urban than it is in reality.

Data Zones

Data Zones are the core geography used for the dissemination of small area statistics in Scotland.  More information on the Data Zone geography can be found on the Spatial.Data.gov.scot website.  Each Data Zone has been assigned to an urban rural category based upon the location of its population weighted centroid.  Data Zones were not designed to nest within the urban rural classification and, as a result, some Data Zones do straddle the classification boundaries.  Therefore, it may be possible to have postcodes and Output Areas that belong to one urban rural category when classified based on the locations of their centroids, but belong to another class when the Data Zone in which they are located is used to classify them.  To illustrate, Table 5.1 below measures the degree of straddling in terms of Output Areas that are classified differently based upon the Data Zones that they fall within.

The effect of straddling can also be expressed by the percentage of Output Areas which are assigned to the same category under their centroid classification and their classification based upon the Data Zone in which they are located:

• 99.9% of Census Output Areas are correctly assigned to Large Urban Areas
• 99.7% of Census Output Areas are correctly assigned to Other Urban Areas
• 99.1% of Census Output Areas are correctly assigned to Accessible Small Towns
• 98.4% of Census Output Areas are correctly assigned to Remote Small Towns
• 93.3% of Census Output Areas are correctly assigned to Accessible Rural
• 95.6% of Census Output Areas are correctly assigned to Remote Rural

As shown above, the degree of straddling is most apparent in Accessible and Remote Rural Areas.  This is the result of the fact that Data Zones can be very large in rural areas, in order to meet the minimum population threshold, and therefore are more likely to straddle the drive time areas and Settlement boundaries.

Classification of higher geographies

Where larger geographies are concerned, the classification can be used to show the degree of urbanity, rurality and remoteness as a proportion of the population living within each of the 6- and 8-fold categories.  Tables 5.2 and 5.3 below show the percent of population by Urban Rural category for each Local Authority. 

Tables showing the proportion of the population living within each of the 6- and 8-fold categories for Health Boards, Scottish Parliamentary Constituencies, Westminster Parliamentary Constituencies, and Multi-Member Wards are also available as supporting documents.

Land area

As well as calculating the proportion of the population within each of the Urban Rural categories, it is also possible to calculate the proportion of the land area covered by each category.  Tables on the land area for the 2-, 3-, 6- and 8-fold Urban Rural Classifications are available as supporting documents.  The figures give the area to mean high water, excluding areas of inland water larger than 1km², based on building the SGUR2022 categories from Census Output Areas 2022 (i.e. using the Census 2022 Output Area Lookup supporting document).

Islands

In 2022, the Scottish Island Regions geography was published and can be used for grouping Scotland’s islands into nine different island regions.  There are Data Zone lookups available for this geography which can be used in conjunction with the Urban Rural Classification lookups to distinguish mainland and island rural areas.  However, it should be noted the Data Zone assignments are a best-fit, based on the locations of the population weighted centroids, as some Data Zones straddle islands and the mainland, and/or multiple islands.