Degree of urbanisation (of an area)

A measure of human activity concentration based on the average surrounding address density (SAD). This is indicated by the following five categories:

• very highly urbanised: average density of 2,500 or more addresses per km2;
• highly urbanised: average density of 1,500 to 2,500 addresses per km2
• moderately urbanised: average density of 1,000 to 1,500 addresses per km2
• lightly urbanised: average density of 500 to 1,000 addresses per km2;
• not urbanised: average density of less than 500 addresses per km2.

Surrounding address density is defined as the number of addresses within a circle with a radius of one kilometre around an address, divided by the area of the circle. When classifying by urbanicity, numeric values of the average ambient address density for individual areas were categorized into five groups or classes. The class boundaries of the different categories of urbanicity have been applied since 1992 and were chosen in order to include approximately the same number of inhabitants in all classes. The average surrounding address density of an area is its average value for all addresses within that area. The surrounding address density is shown in addresses per km2.