County Durham is largely a rural area with around 57% of its area classified as rural in nature, a further 32% classified as rural town and fringe and 11% classed as urban, based upon the 2011 Rural-Urban classification for Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs).

The Rural-Urban Classification (RUC) categorises a range of small area geographies on the basis of physical settlement and related characteristics.  In its original form, the RUC was developed for a consortium of government agencies for use with the 2001 Census and then revised following the 2011 Census for a similar consortium including the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG), the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and the Welsh Government (WG).

RUC in itself includes no statistical data, but provides categorical attributes for the members of these small area geographies.

The following links and sections provide further information and statistics for County Durham based upon the 2011 RUC:

Spreadsheet: Rural-urban classification County Durham (xlxs; 1.1Mb)
(2017 Population by main age groups and by area for the the 2011 Census Output Areas (OAs), Lower and Middle SOAs, Area Action Partnership, Clinical Commissioning Groups and Localities and other main geographical service areas.)

Web Map: Rural-Urban Web Map for County Durham
(Web map showing the OA and LSOA Rural-Urban classification across County Durham)

Statistics by RUC: NOMIS
(2011 Census data by OA, LSOA and MSOA by RUC)

Further Information: 2011 Rural Urban Classification (GOV.UK)

Population

The following is based on the 2011 RUC for Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) and the ONS 2022 population estimates which have been adjusted to match the changes in the LSOA geography between 2011 and 2021.

County Durham covers an area of 223,265 hectares (2021) and has an estimated population of 528,100 (ONS 2022 population estimates).

  • Rural areas cover around 57% of the county and is home to just 7.2% (around 37,500 people) of the county’s total population, giving a population density of 0.3 people per hectare.
  • Rural Town & Fringe areas cover around 32% of the county and is home to 37% (around 195,100 people) of the county’s total population, giving a population density of 2.7 people per hectare.
  • Urban areas cover around 11% of the county and is home to 56% (around 295,300 people) of the county’s total population, giving a population density of 12.1 people per hectare.

Further information on the population of County Durham is available in the ‘Population‘ theme.

The documents we publish on this page are either legally required to be made available for inspection, for information and analysis purposes or may have been supplied by the public and so in some cases may not be fully accessible. If, for any reason, you cannot access the documents and need an alternative format, please email ina@durham.gov.uk.