There's Rural, Then There's Rural

Once you get out into what the USDA Economic Research Service's Rural-Urban Continuum terms "non-metro" areas - especially these:

7	Urban population of 2,500 to 19,999, not adjacent to a metro area
9	Completely rural or less than 2,500 urban population, not adjacent to a metro area

...You are officially in the sticks!

But the USDA also defines rural counties based not only on their primary economic activity (or lack thereof) but by Urban Influence, Commute Distance, You Name It!

What all the stats boil down to is there is a wide variety of of "country", from sparsely populated areas adjacent to federal lands and or recreation areas, to those with either a service or a manufacturing based economy to those defined mostly by their poverty...


There is also a census area called a Micropolis - a small town with an influence over a larger rural area which make more sense than trying to define on a county only basis.

But of course it is those really rural areas based mainly on farming or like my own predominately farming but diverse enough to not fall strictly in one category or another that I'm interested. They comprise a tiny portion of the population of the US and somewhere around 600 counties mostly in the center of the country.