La delimitación del ámbito rural: una cuestión clave en los programas de desarrollo rural

Abstract

The delimitation of rural areas has traditionally been a topic of considerable scientific interest. The contrasts between urban and rural areas, which are easily distinguishable both in the landscape and in their social and economic characteristics, have raised the interest to define a limit that has not always been easily detectable. Quantitative and qualitative criteria, and even a mixture of both, have been used to label rural and urban territory, sometimes using terminology that shows more of the gradation between the two concepts rather than their dichotomy. International agencies have not been oblivious to this concern, and have proposed methodologies for cataloging these areas and the people in them according to criteria of rurality. Furthermore, the «territorial approach» is one of the bases of the Rural Development Programs that have been applied in the European Union over the last twenty five years, which has given a new impulse to the research in this field.