Rural areas can be large and isolated (also referred to as "the country," and/or "the countryside) over the course of time. According to William Howarth, author of “The Value of Rural Life in American Culture,” rural communities were dominant in the beginning of the twentieth century, with the majority of the population living on independent homesteads. However, the rise of mechanized farming caused the population to shift, and in 1920 the census reported that urban populations exceeded 50 percent. Today 75 percent of the United States' inhabitants live in cities and suburbs, but they only occupy 2 percent of its land mass. Rural areas occupy the remaining 98 percent.

About 90 percent of the rural population now earn salaried incomes, often in urban areas. The 10 percent who still produce resources are generate 20 percent of the world's coal, copper, and oil; 10 percent of its wheat, 20 percent of its meat, and 50 percent of its corn. The efficiency these farms is due in large part to the commercialization of the farming industry, and not single family operations.

United States

In the Rural Information Center's publication, What is Rural? “many people have definitions for the term rural, but seldom are these rural definitions in agreement. For some, rural is a subjective state of mind. For others, rural is an objective quantitative measure. Metropolitan/urban areas can be defined using several criteria. Once this is done, nonmetropolitan/rural is then defined by exclusion -- any area that is not metropolitan/urban is nonmetropolitan/rural. Determining the criteria used has a great impact on the resulting classification of areas as metro/ nonmetropolitan or urban/rural.”

The US Census Bureau, the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Economic Research Service, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have come together to help define rural areas. The Bureau of the Census defines an urbanized area by population density. An urbanized area consists of a central city and surrounding areas whose population is greater than 50,000. In addition, other towns outside of an urbanized area whose population exceeds 2,500 are included in the urban population, leaving all other areas rural. On the contrary, the United States Department of Agriculture classifies specific counties as metropolitan or nonmetropolitan based on codes or rules rather than population calculations. According to the USDA, a metropolitan county is one that contains an urbanized area, or one that has a twenty-five percent commuter rate to an urbanized area regardless of population. Finally, the OMB claims that a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) must contain either a city with at least 50,000 inhabitants, or an urbanized area (defined by the Bureau of the Census) with at least 50,000 inhabitants and a total MSA population of at least 100,000.