Essential to the objective of this inventory is the issue of how "rural" is defined. Different definitions of rural will generate different populations of "rural" people. Pong and Pitblado (2001) have identified some definitions of rural commonly used in Canada and their strengths and limitations.

This inventory attempts to apply measures of rurality that go beyond the simple rural/urban dichotomy to characterize varying levels or "ruralness". These functional definitions were taken from a Statistics Canada publication in the Agricultural and Rural Working Paper Series, Definitions of "Rural" (du Plessis et al., 2002), that outlined six ways of defining "rural" in Canada. A summary table can be found in Appendix A. Du Plessis et al. strongly suggest that:

"... the appropriate definition should be determined by the question being addressed; however, if we were to recommend one definition as a starting-point or benchmark for understanding Canada's rural population, it would be the 'rural and small town' definition. This is the population living in towns and municipalities outside the commuting zone of larger urban centres (i.e. outside the commuting zone of centres with population of 10,000 or more)".

References
Du Plessis V, R Beshiri, RD Bollman and H Clemenson (2002). Definitions of "Rural". Agriculture and Rural Working Paper Series, Working Paper No. 61. Ottawa, Ontario: Statistics Canada, Agricultural Division. Available at: http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/21-601-MIE/21-601-MIE2002061.htm

Pong, RW and R Pitblado (2001). Don't take 'geography' for granted! Some methodological issues in measuring geographic distribution of physicians. Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine 6(2): 103-112. Available at:
http://collection.nlc-bnc.ca/100/201/300/cdn_medical_association/cjrm/vol-6/issue-2/0103.htm