Abstract
In relation to the scale and size of their administrative units, different countries use very different methods for delimiting rural municipalities that are based on simple counts of the population, on a municipality’s position in the system of public administration or on a combination of multiple socio-economic factors. For the delimitation of rural areas, the various EU member states utilize a method based on population density in relatively large NUTS III regions.
This article discusses divergent approaches to the delimitation of rural municipalities, on the one hand, and the delimitation of contiguous rural areas, on the other. Concepts concerning the delimitation of rural municipalities, along with differing characteristics leading to the delimitation of rural municipalities for the statistical processing of large amounts of data or characteristics for subjective evaluations of a small group of units, are discussed using the example of Czechia’s settlement structure.