Urban and Rural Definitions in Regional Context: A Case Study on Turkey

Transformations in the urban and rural areas under the effects of global economic, social and political circumstances have rendered their boundaries more blurring. It has become increasingly difficult to make a clear distinction between urban and rural. This paper intends to bring definitions of urban--rural into discussion in the context of Turkey. It reveals the results of a research project (conducted by Hürriyet G. Öğdül with Serkan Öngel and Habip Uluçay from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul, Turkey, in 2007 and financed by the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey and Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University Research Fund), aiming at revealing the degrees of the urbanity and rurality throughout the country, with an emphasis on the diversification of regions in the urban--rural context. The study is conducted at the NUTS 4 level. Districts are classified as “dominantly rural, dominantly urban and transitional” through the factor analysis based on six structures: agricultural production, non-agricultural production, employment, demography, education and flows of money, goods and people. The urban--rural profile of the country is found as rural and transitional. It is possible to observe some areas displaying deep rural characters in well-developed western regions and some “prosperity spots” dispersed throughout the less-developed eastern regions. Then, regional classifications ranging from “concentrated urban regions” to “rural regions” are made at the NUTS 1 level. Finally, the results are evaluated in perspectives of spatial planning of Turkey and entering process to the EU.