Urban rural consult Doc

Population grid Some international statistical agencies, particularly in Europe, use grids to delineate urban and rural areas, or use grids as a separate product to provide population density figures. This provides a stable geography that is able to be used for tracking change over time.

Grid cells are comparable and provide a framework for integration with other datasets. However grid cells may not be as granular as required, and if used for anything other than population counts would result in data suppression for grid cells with small populations.

Grid cells are coarser than other statistical geographies in urban areas, but provide data at a finer resolution in rural areas.

Grid cells of a 1km² size are commonly used. This is the size used for the Australian Bureau of Statistics population grid, GEOSTAT 2011 and INSPIRE grids (also available in 10 and 100km² grids)