4. Concluding discussion 

This work presented herein describes the grid-based Nordic urban–rural typology, which was developed as a new analytical tool for studying different types of spatial phenomena across Nordic territories. The report is in two main parts, first, Section 2 describes how the typology was created, including the rationale behind the typology, key considerations at different stages of the work, and the main operational steps taken in developing the typology. Second, Section 3 describes the use of the typology as an analytical lens for studying territorial and settlement patterns and demographic change dynamics across the urban–rural continuum in the five Nordic countries. Finally, a concluding discussion and final reflections concerning the typology development are presented, followed by a discussion of the main conclusions and observations that can be drawn from the analysis using the Nordic urban–rural typology. 

 

As described in Section 2, a key starting point for this study was the requirement for a territorial typology that would help enrich and further understanding of different types of urban and rural areas across the Nordic countries and shed light on how they are developing. While there are many European and national typologies that are useful for both research and policymaking purposes in the contexts for which they have been developed, none of these existing typologies is well suited for cross-Nordic comparisons at more detailed territorial levels. For instance, the widely used DEGURBA typology which is suitable for more general comparisons of different types of regions or municipalities does not reveal territorial differences at a more detailed level, such as within municipalities. A shortcoming of the more general territorial classifications is that they do not consider that there can be very different types of areas within a single administrative unit; an issue especially prevalent in the Nordic countries, where many municipalities are vast in size and most Nordic municipalities tend to include both urban and rural areas. Thus, the objective was to develop a harmonised Nordic territorial typology that would allow capture of these internal differences and to which different types of data could be combined and then used for further analysing these areas. 

Several key principles were specified early in the work. One of these was that the typology should be created at grid-level as this allows identification and capture of the characteristics of different types of areas at a very local and detailed territorial level. From a Nordic perspective, it is a clear advantage that all Nordic countries annually produce statistics at grid level, and that these datasets can easily be combined with a grid-based territorial classification to then identify patterns and trends that are less evident or entirely concealed at more general levels of analysis. Another data-related advantage of the Nordic typology is that while administrative units are bound to change over time, grids are uniform, uni-size, and constant, which is useful from the perspective of carrying out temporal analysis. Another advantage is that high-resolution grid data can be scaled up to a more general level of aggregation, while more general spatial data cannot (in the same) way be scaled down and made more detailed with the same accuracy. Based on an assessment of the existing data sources available for constructing the typology, it also became evident that it would be possible to include the five Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden) and Åland, whereas it would not be feasible to include Greenland and the Faroe Islands in the typology at this stage owing to a lack of data from these two autonomous territories. 

For the development of the Nordic typology, the Finnish grid-based urban–rural classification (Kaupunki-maaseutuluokitus) was the main source of inspiration. While it was obvious that it would not be possible to directly scale up the Finnish typology to the Nordic level, it was possible to incorporate several of its core elements and use the Finnish classification as a stepping stone for the Nordic typology. Another key decision was that the typology should be developed using (mainly) open-source data and following a replicable data process model. As data can in some cases be quite expensive, a key advantage of this approach is that any possible future updates or adjustments to the typology will be easier and less costly. While the Finnish typology is constructed at 250 x 250 m grid level, it became evident early in the process that it would be preferable to develop the Nordic typology at 1 x 1 km grid level; most freely available national grid data are at 1 x 1 km grid level. It was also acknowledged that constructing a Nordic typology would require making some simplifications (as compared to the original Finnish model), which meant that a 250 x 250 m resolution would be too detailed at Nordic level. Nevertheless, the Finnish typology provided important inspiration and it was decided to develop a Nordic urban–rural typology consisting of the same territorial classes and named similarly as in the Finnish classification. The Finnish typology was also used as a reference classification for constructing the Nordic typology, and the initial results of the Nordic classification were assessed by comparing how well the Nordic territorial classes corresponded to the classes of the Finnish urban–rural typology. 

 

In the analysis in Section 3, the Nordic urban–rural typology and population data at grid level (linked to the typology) were used to examine what territorial and settlement patterns look like in the Nordic countries. This Nordic typology was used in parallel to the European-wide municipality-based DEGURBA classification, which is the most established and widely used territorial typology for cross-country comparisons. The purpose was to shed new light on urban–rural differences across the Nordic countries by using grid-based Nordic typology to examine what types of differences might be observed more locally within municipalities (that cannot be observed with more general data at the municipal level). According to the DEGURBA classification, most Nordic municipalities are rural. This is the case especially in Iceland, Finland and Åland, and Norway where almost 86%, 80%, and 78%, respectively, of municipalities are categorized as rural according to the Eurostat classification, while in Sweden and Denmark, the corresponding proportions are 50% and 46%, respectively. It is characteristic of many of the Nordic rural municipalities that they are often vast in size and cover large parts of the territory in their respective countries. This is where the Nordic typology can be useful as it can help reveal territorial differences particularly within those municipalities which are vast in size and contain different types of areas. 

In addition, according to the grid-based Nordic urban rural typology, the Nordic countries are predominantly rural when considering how their land areas are classified in the Nordic typology. However, based on the Nordic typology, there are noticeable differences between the countries in terms of which types of rural areas are most common. For example, in Iceland almost 80% of the land is classified as sparsely populated rural, while Norway and Finland and Åland have relatively high proportions of sparse rural areas (almost 40% of the land area). By contrast, in Denmark, these types of highly sparse areas are almost non-existent, and what is characteristic for both Denmark and Sweden is that most rural areas belong to the class rural area close to urban. It is also noteworthy that the urban typology classes, namely, inner urban areas and outer urban areas, only account for a low proportion of the land area in all Nordic countries. This share was the highest in Denmark where these two urban classes constitute less than 7% of the territory. 

An examination of settlement patterns according to the Nordic typology and population density at 1 × 1 km grid level shows that the settlements are highly unevenly distributed in all the Nordic countries. The population is to a high degree concentrated in coastal areas and along waterways, where the major urban regions are found, reflecting historical patterns and features of physical geography. The majority of the population live relatively concentrated in areas that are classified as urban, and the combined proportion of people living in inner and outer urban areas ranged from approximately 53% in Norway to approximately 66% in Iceland. The substantially higher population density in the urban typology classes explains that while the Nordic countries consist predominantly of territories that can be described as rural, the population live largely in the more densely populated urban areas. 

The second part of the analysis involved use of the Nordic typology and grid-level data to examine what types of population change dynamics occurred in the Nordic countries during the period 2008–2022. The analysis shows that urbanisation has been a general trend in the Nordic countries during the past couple of decades. This means that urban regions have seen the most noticeable increase in population, with the largest population growth occurring in the typology classes inner urban and outer urban. A relatively noticeable increase in population is also evident in peri-urban areas, suggesting that intermediate areas located on the urban fringes have increasingly attracted new residents. In rural areas, the general trend shows that depopulation has occurred in many rural localities, but the analysis shows that different types of rural areas have developed quite differently. For instance, contrary to the general trend seen especially in sparse rural areas, rural areas close to urban areas have generally seen an increase in population, in a similar manner to local centres in rural areas. Based on this, some of these rural areas that are in the vicinity of cities and towns appear to have become more attractive places for people to settle. In addition, sparsely populated rural areas seem to be less favourably placed and the general trend in these areas points to noticeable population decrease. 

The final part of the analysis was to examine the types of internal differences in territorial and settlement patterns that can be observed within Nordic municipalities. This was carried out by using the Nordic grid-based typology to further examine the characteristics of those municipalities that are defined as urban, intermediate, and rural according to the DEGURBA classification. This was also a way to assess how well the Nordic typology classes correspond to the territorial classes of DEGURBA. 

A comparison of these two territorial classifications shows that in most cases these territorial classifications correspond relatively well to each other. This means that, for instance, in most Nordic municipalities that are categorised as urban according to the DEGURBA classification, the urban territorial classes of the Nordic typology are where most people live. Also, in most municipalities that are classified as rural according to DEGURBA, the population primarily live in one of the rural classes of the Nordic typology, which also constitute most of the land area. Nevertheless, there are also many cases where the Nordic and the DEGURBA classifications differ more clearly from each other and where the Nordic typology reveals more considerable territorial differences within the municipality.  

There are 61 Nordic municipalities that are defined as urban according to the Eurostat typology, and these municipalities are rather diverse. They include urban municipalities where almost the entire population live in one of the urban classes of the Nordic typology, and where almost the entire land area of the municipality is classified as part of one of the urban classes. The most densely populated municipalities that are part of the major Nordic urban regions fall into this category. On the other hand, the analysis also shows that there are urban municipalities where the population largely resides in the urban classes of the Nordic typology, but where the territory of the municipality is predominantly either intermediate or rural. These urban municipalities are typically vast in size and have a population which is concentrated in and around the main urban centres. 

Noticeable differences are also manifest among the 774 Nordic municipalities that are defined as rural according to the DEGURBA classification. One distinct type is municipalities that are rural according to the Eurostat typology and where nearly the entire population and the land area are rural according to the Nordic typology. Other types of municipalities are those that are classified as rural according to DEGURBA but where the land area and the population is predominantly intermediate according to the Nordic typology. Among this type are those municipalities that are in the vicinity of large and medium-sized urban regions.  

However, the greatest internal differences can be seen among those 288 Nordic municipalities that are classified as intermediate according to the DEGURBA classification. At one end of the spectrum are those municipalities that have a rather urban character and where both the land area and the population almost entirely belong to one of the urban classes of the Nordic classification. At the other extreme are those intermediate municipalities with a clearly more rural character and where either the population or the land area is predominantly rural according to the Nordic typology. In between these two distinct categories are those municipalities classified as intermediate according to DEGURBA, which also have an intermediate or peri-urban character based on the Nordic typology. 

Overall, the main guiding purpose for creating the Nordic urban–rural typology presented in this report was to provide a new analytical framework for analysing territorial differences in the Nordic countries at a detailed spatial resolution. We have illustrated how this typology can help reveal territorial differences that cannot be observed with more general statistics and data, and shown how it can be used to complement more general statistics and typologies bound to administrative areas such as municipalities. The analysis shows that more fine-grained data can help reveal patterns and developments that are less evident or entirely concealed at more general levels. More specifically, grid-based Nordic typology shows that many municipalities are at the same time both urban, intermediate, and rural, and in many cases these different categories seem to be undergoing quite different types of development. While this study used the Nordic urban–rural typology to examine settlement patterns and population change dynamics, it should be stressed that the typology could also be used in combination with other types of data and be used as an analytical framework for studying other types of spatial phenomena across the urban–rural continuum.