Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country town

Country Town

Country Town is a 1971 Australian drama film directed by Peter Maxwell, produced by Fenton Rosewarne and starring Terry McDermott, Gary Gray and Lynette Curran...

s and smaller cities

Small Town

Small Town is a song written by John Cougar Mellencamp and released on his 1985 album Scarecrow. The song reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.-Content:...

 will be included. They have a low population

Population

A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...

 density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

. The degree to which areas of wilderness

Wilderness

Wilderness or wildland is a natural environment on Earth that has not been significantly modified by human activity. It may also be defined as: "The most intact, undisturbed wild natural areas left on our planet—those last truly wild places that humans do not control and have not developed with...

 are included in the term varies; very large wilderness areas are not likely to be described by the term in most contexts.

In most parts of the world rural areas have been declining since the 19th century or earlier, both as a proportion of land area, and in terms of the proportion of the population living in them.