When people say they live “rural”, what do you envision?

200 people live where I do...spread out

All good. But if you sneeze someone knows about it 😂

Depends as if the county doesn’t have a city it’s classed as rural and will have limited police force, so everyone’s interpretation is different.

I actually live in a town which is considered a rural community due to the larger area it’s in. It’s comprised mostly of villages with some small towns, all of which have under 10k inhabitants, and the vast majority have under 5k.

So for me, somewhere like Dolgellau I’d consider rural, even though that’s a town. Rural to me doesn’t necessarily mean an isolated farm house out in the sticks.

As an urbanite, I’d consider anywhere with single track roads rural and anywhere that I’m more likely to see a farm animal than a mode of public transport rural.

Oh, yes, and no gas.

Only oil.

Could not do deliveroo or Uber in a million years. We don't really exist. I like it!

I lie on a sunbed topless in the garden, no one can see me!

Nearest big supermarket 18 miles round trip. That's rural... to me anyway.

I think I live rurally. Village is 25 minutes walk away. Nearest supermarket about 30 minutes by car. No Ubers, no food delivery, bus to big town 4x a day from village. No effing mobile phone signal. But and it's a big but 6 minutes from major motorway junction.

I find it very subjective, people often confuse rural with being isolated

We live in a small village of around 500 that has a church and community run village store and ‘pub’ that’s ran out of a mobile home and operated by volunteers from the village, the stock is supplied by our local farms. We don’t have a school or ‘proper’ supermarket, not even a little coop or Tesco

We’re not on a gas line, so everyone has an oil tank and to get to the nearest supermarket or ‘big’ village you have to drive 15-20 minutes through farmland - BUT we are very close to an A road and the roads to get to our village aren’t one track so I consider us well connected. We have a village bus (it’s like a people carrier) that you can prebook if you need to go anywhere

Deliveroo recently started delivering to us - very pleased about that

I live in a new-ish estate of almost 4k people, 3 mins drive outside three somewhat merged towns that total around 100k people…and less than 10 mins from a motorway. People in the estate still firmly state they live in ‘the country’.

For what it’s worth i would see village living a good drive from a large population centre as rural, even if there’s schools/shops/pubs nearby!

I find when people on MN say they live rurally, they just mean they don’t live in a major city. 😂

I live rurally. We live on a farm with only one other house within about a mile. Closest supermarket is a 15 minute drive away. No public transport. My view out the window is of the moor.

I live fairly rurally (by my definition, but most people see it as extreme). There is one lane, made up entirely of employees of the farm across the road (which means that privacy is a bit of a novel concept). After that, it is fields and hills as far as the eye can see! We are not on mains gas, have septic tanks in some of our gardens, and our world often smells of muck-spreading! We can only have one internet provider and one (patchy) phone company, as anything else doesn't work. Roads are narrow and bordered by hedges. Pavements don't exist, but potholes are widely available. The only street light doesn't work, with an on-going battle between whether the company or the council owns it. This means that it's pitch black at night, so head-torches are a must-have item. We are four miles from anywhere that isn't a farm, with the exception of the local tiny Welsh-medium primary school, which is mainly made up of children from farming families (or related industries). As a result of farming being the main occupation, most people have Land Rover Defenders or pick-ups, and our clothes are usually in various shades of black, brown, dark green or perhaps navy! Our smart 'going out' shoes tend to involve labels like Redback, Blundstones or Yakka. Local children tend to play out on ride-on tractors with trailers more often than on bikes.

It is a 10-15 minute drive at 50-60mph (interspersed with a 20 zone) into town (unless you are stuck behind a tractor). The shops in town include (but are not limited to) agricultural ones that sell everything from chicken feed and power-tools to XXL boxes of laundry powder. The nearest vet surgeries both have livestock departments and small animal ones. You would be virtually stranded if you didn't have a car, so thank goodness that groceries can be delivered, and neighbours give each other a lift when your car has to go to the garage for its MOT! The people in the nearest (small) city are said to be of a VASTLY different breed😆and we all breathe a sigh of relief when we leave behind 'the city' for the green fields on our way home!

I’m rural my neighbours are sheep and wildlife!! Nearest pub is 4miles away and nearest shop is 8miles away can’t go anywhere on foot and if we have appointments they have to give us at least 45min warning 😅

I teach in a village that I would class as rural. Very small, one pub, one shop, lots of farms, most families are farmers / game keepers / ride / shoot etc.

I’m really curious to know what sort of work people who live in some of these truly rural areas do for a living? (And whether I can do the same?!)

I work from home, DH works all over the place so it's kind of irrelevant where he lives, apart from the fact that it's more of a pain to get to an airport.

I work from home. I wouldn't be able to live here if I couldn't WFH, local jobs don't pay enough.

I wouldn't class it as proper rural where i live. Its a village, with two pubs, school, shop.
The "farms" around the village are mainly equestrian or random stuff like organic English wine .
Signs it is a bit "rural"

• smell the muck spreading every year without fail
• horses & cows seem to escape into the road regularly
• can easily get farm gate eggs/veg/meat.

We live rurally. You can’t survive here without a four wheel drive and even then we are cut off every winter with snow. I am used to it now. I think there is a spectrum on the rural front. Completely out in the wild with no neighbours at all for miles and miles to well resourced villages still miles from town but with a small amount of infrastructure.

I'm closed as living rurally around 5 miles from very well known villages and towns cheddar and glasbury around 9 miles from the city off wells.
One pub on outskirts off village no shop other them a honestly farm shop in village bus run around 2 and half hours wk days only last bus 5 pm quite a big village lifts off new houses lovely country side nature reserves main hospital around 25 millez away ,if you don't drive have to change bus 3 or 4 times to get to mai. Hospital.
Their are comutey hospital around 5 miles away but very limited services.
I love were I live but don't consider us rural anoth to justify our lack off service ,sorry bit off a issue with me at mommet.
In answer to the question I would consider rural to be isolated farms not close to well known tourists villages towns and city

We are just outside a village, it’s about a 30min walk to the edge/shop but only 5mins in the car.

We're about the same distance wise.
I've got some neighbours at the sides (not close) but nothing but hills behind me.

My loudest neighbours are cows.

I’d say I live rural. We have an old farm workers cottage. Nothing but fields out the front and fields out the back. I have two neighbours and neither overlook our property. We are just outside a village, it’s about a 30min walk to the edge/shop but only 5mins in the car. The DD’s have to get a bus to their catchment school.

I live in a village with just 1 pub, 1 shop, and a hairdresser. 1 bus a day , i don't drive because I have epilepsy. There is a school and a preschool. I have lived here for 40 years, extremely isolating but I have been with my partner for nearly 3 years and we are going to move, it will be a luxury for even 2 buses a day, 2 pubs and 2 shops- where we are moving to for me is luxury. No more isolation.

Fields, joules coat and hunting dogs.
farms, mud, more mud. Some cows or and some fishing.
you also need the farmer hat. Not too many neighbors. Loads of holly roads.

My idea of heaven, with plenty of bridle paths to hack out on my horse. DH wants to be shops and a pub etc so we’d compromise with a small village, planning a move to Somerset or Wiltshire in next year or 2

Exactly as you’ve described it really - we are on an old farm, surrounded by our own land, only 5 farms in our postcode which covers miles. I think a hamlet (no more than 3-4 houses) also counts as rural but anything more and it’s a village.

I think the term "rural" is sometimes used where "semi-rural" would be more accurate.