Rural areas of the country are vast — covering 97 percent of the nation's footprint — but these areas account for less than 20 percent of the population, according to new census data released Thursday. Rural parts of the Atlanta metro area can be increasingly hard to find as large wooded areas are replaced with new neighborhoods, expansive supermarkets and the wider roads that are needed to meet that development.

The data released Thursday is part of the 2015 American Community Survey, a collection of five years of U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Every community in the country was surveyed on more than 40 topics, including housing, employment, education and more. It found notable differences between people living in rural and urban areas. Residents of rural areas are more likely to own their own homes and less likely to live in poverty. They're also more likely to have served in the military.



The census definition for "rural" is any area not considered urban. And the "urban" definition is set by standard measures, including population size and density and the amount of impervious surfaces (parking lots for example). There are exceptions for small airports (still rural) or large urban developments that may be separated from metro areas by large parks or nature preserves (still urban). Of more than 3,100 counties, only 29 are completely urban and 704 are completely rural, including Heard County. So, most of us live in counties with some mix of urban and rural. Many cities are completely urban.

Here are the Atlanta metro area's Rurality Levels, based on the percentage of the population living in areas designated "rural" by the census: Heard County: 100 percent rural



Pike County: 99 percent rural



Meriwether County: 83.3 percent rural



Jasper County: 81.8 percent rural

Dawson County: 80.3 percent rural

