A recommendation on the method to delineate cities, urban and rural areas for international statistical comparisons

The European Commission, together with 5 international organizations, developed ‘A recommendation on the method to delineate cities, urban and rural areas for international statistical comparisons’, which was endorsed on March 5th by the UN Statistical Commission.

This new method, called the Degree of Urbanization, identifies three types of settlements:

1. Cities, which have a population of at least 50,000 inhabitants in contiguous dense grid cells (>1,500 inhabitants per km2);
2. Towns and semi-dense areas, which have a population of at least 5,000 inhabitants in contiguous grid cells with a density of at least 300 inhabitants per km2; and
3. Rural areas, which consist mostly of low-density grid cells.

This new approach offers several advantages:

• Simplicity and transparency. 
• Driven by population size and density. 
• It helps monitor progress on the SDGs. 
• It captures agglomeration economies. 
• Cost-effective monitoring.

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