Research Areas

This report aims to establish a typology of Spanish urban/rural spaces more complete and detailed than can be obtained using traditional criteria, which grant a decisive importance to population density as a differentiating dimension. Using geographical information systems (GIS), and in line with the recent European literature, we emphasize the need to integrate at least two other dimensions: the intensity of human intervention in the territory, measured by the prevailing type of soil coverage, and the degree of accessibility from rural municipalities to cities. We put forward a typological proposal that includes six different types of municipalities: urban and intermediate open and closed municipalities (according to land cover), and accessible and remote rural communities. A land-use-based classification does not discriminate enough between rural municipalities, just as, by definition, the accessibility dimension does not affect urban municipalities.