What does “rural” mean to you?

[HowDairy]

We see it very often on MN - “I live rurally”.
So what do you consider is rural?
Just how far out of town is proper rural living?

To me, it means that you have to drive for the essentials - milk, bread etc.
But then, “ walkable” means different things to each and every one of us, dependent on ability.
So, answering my own question, it’s basically a how long is a piece of string scenario 🤔

I live what I'd consider to be rurally. No shop, no pub, no bus service - nearest town and A road is 6 miles away. No takeaway delivery service comes near. Thankfully covered by supermarket deliveries though. Village is surrounded by open fields, lots of farmland and there's a healthy ratio of farm animals to people. Internet is shockingly bad, and you have to hang out of a window upstairs to get a decent phone signal.

In, of, or like the countryside - Cambridge Dictionary.

Thats the entirety of the dictionary definition. No clauses stating any specific proximity to amenities, or moors.

By this definition I live rurally. By most definitions I live rurally - no shop, poor bus service, 45 mins fast walk along 60mph roads to the nearest useful village with a post office, train station, cafe school etc. However, Ds14 can be in the centre of our nearest midsized town in 35 mins cycling and tesco is only 7 miles away and <10 mins by car.

So, 🤷
Its all relative to individual situations.

Rural literally means countryside - surrounded by countryside rather than in a town or village.

So you can be rural, but not that far from a town or city. I’m 20 minutes’ drive from a couple of sizeable commuter towns, but where I live is definitely rural. All the way around are fields, woodland, farmland. No shops, no transport, no church, a few dozen houses, regularly snowed in or blocked in by storm falls, 30 mins walk to the nearest pub and tiny village shop, 1.5 hrs walk to the nearest market town with a post office and co-op (which I’ve done both ways in thick snow).

I’d say we’re rural even though we’re not that far from London as the crow flies.

I grew up rurally. By which I mean I had to walk a mile and a half to the bus stop and then catch the bus for 40 minutes to get to secondary school. My village primary school had 35 pupils.

My parents still live there. You have to drive everywhere, they still have a septic tank and look out over fields at the front and back.

I hated it growing up and I worry about them now they're getting older. They're very isolated and if they stop driving they'll be stuffed. But they love it and say they could never live anywhere else.

DH and I now live on the edge of a town. Countryside behind us but a 20 minute walk from amenities which is perfect for us.

You literally live in a town 😂 not rural

Definition seems to be low density of population. Nothing to do with countryside views, lack of shops, although I guess those often come with.

In a village or hamlet. Not next to a small town.

It just means in the countryside. That’s it. You know it when you see it.

This is the view from my window. According to some of these definitions we are not rural though because we do have a little local hub in walking distance that sells bread and milk.

If you can walk round your garden naked with no chance of your neighbours seeing you, you live rurally.

I saw an estate agent listing for a house in my area, it is in a hamlet of 26 houses and 2 farms. There are no walkable shops, no buses. The listing described it as 'semi rural', I have to say I was a bit 😯 at that, it seems pretty damn rural to me!

The countryside, I don’t know why people say rural, it sounds like a government report.

Either in a village or properly out in the countryside. I don’t think it needs to mean no shops, because some villages do still have a shop or two if they’re lucky.

You see to me 26 houses is a bloody big hamlet. Where I grew up we had 3 houses on our side of the road and eight on the other. It was a half mile walk into the village..

I live on a Croft on the top of a hill. I can walk to the neighbours

Doctors, school and shop are 3 mile drive. Or half hour walk. 45 mins on way home as it's uphill 😂

Academy and work are a 25 minute drive. Nearest big town with clothes shops etc is 45 mins drive

I can see lochs and hills from my house in all directions. It's very peaceful and.... windy!

I definitely do not live rurally, and never have. Currently in a home county,
Nearest supermarket is an easy 8 minute walk, closest primary school a 12 minute walk.
Just nosey what it means to other MNs when they see “I live rurally” on here.

I live surrounded by fields, nearest shop is a petrol station 10 minute drive, nearest supermarket 25 minutes drive as is the secondary school. Over an hour and a half to a small city. No bus service. We live outside a village that other than a tiny primary school has nothing else. It is rural but not remote.

Rural means you have no town within a 20-30 min drive. Mailbox down at the bottom of the gravel track. Teenagers hanging out on farms.

Driving to get milk isn’t rural. I used to like in a central Auckland suburb and we drove to get milk. I was 30min walk to the bus stop. We are considered city folks.

I live in a village but don't really count it as proper rural but its completely different to my childhood in London suburbs.

Its rather well connected dur to a tourist attraction, but the bus service takes ages as it goes round all the villages. I get kept awake by tractors during the harvest. It has a Secondary school... but its the school for lots of villages not just ours! Same with the college, there's 20 different bus routes.

The school has its own campsite as it has so much land.

The school and college support things like several take aways and a couple of convenience stores.

But its not rural rural... the nearest city is only twenty drive minutes away

I live in rural France, it is 10km to the nearest shop. Nearest biggish town is 35 mins away and nearest city/airport is an hour away.

It is louder here than our village in the UK, what with the farm traffic, the air dispay team practicing, the French Air Force and their low flying jets, the constant humm of mowers,strimmers, leaf blowers, restoration work on the 12th century church 2 streets away, the farm equipment, and not forgetting the cows on the other side of the small river at the side of our rear woodland. It's a hive of activity like most small village in rural France.

The district where I live is considered rural including the 4 market towns. I think small market towns do feel rural for people from large urban areas. Currently live on a country lane which is dotted with houses and farms every half mile, so it’s not really isolated.
Almost everything you need can be bought in the nearest market town, even though it’s very touristy. There are two small supermarkets, a reasonable range of shops including an electrical shop which delivers for free often on the same day. Only go either of the larger towns about 45mins away a few times a year.

As a previous poster said, rural doesn't mean the same as remote. It just means 'in the countryside'. I'm not sure why people are inventing their own definitions and being baffling snarky when anyone else goes by the actual dictionary definition.

I live in a rural area, characterised by farmland, fells, woods, estuary and marsh. I live in a village with a shop. There are other similar villages nearby. I'm 20 minutes from a town and 30 minutes from a small city.

Many people would consider where i live rural but We have primary/secondary school, leisure centre, doctors, library, coop and spar.

However there's no take away delivery, no Ocado and It's 60 miles to the nearest primark. Also it's about 2 hours away if you need any kind of specialist hospital appointment. Also 2 hours plus to a city.

Technically you have all the basic essentials right here but it's a very remote area. It's very different from a tiny hamlet within half an hour of a large town.

Seeing tractors going past your window on a daily basis

I always think of the place where Postman Pat is set. That's rural.
Although last time I watched he was flying around in a helicopter which means the Greendale Locals Facebook group must be a constant state of alert and excitement 🚁

I think of villages as rural. They're not exactly urban. There's lots of small villages near us that are surrounded by country side, they have bus stops and a couple of them have shops but they are definitely still rural as far as I'm concerned