What part of Florida is most rural? This county ranks on a 'best places for rural living' list

Lianna Norman, USA TODAY NETWORK - Florida
·4 min read
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When nonresidents think of Florida, crowded beaches and tourist hotspots like Orlando's Disney World and Universal are most likely top-of-mind.

But Florida isn’t just beaches and tourist attractions. More than 30 of Florida’s 67 counties are considered rural by the state’s definition.

A recent nationwide study and poll from BusinessElectric.com revealed the best locations for rural living in each state and three Florida counties are on the list.

Here's what qualifies as a rural area and the best counties in Florida for rural living, according to the study.

What qualifies as a rural area? What is rural living?

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) both define "rural" differently than the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

The Census actually doesn't have a proper definition for rural and just considers every area that isn't an "urban area" with 50,000 or more residents "rural." To the Census Bureau, any area that isn't labeled urban is just a rural area, even if 49,000 people live there.

The Office of Management and Budget is similar to the Census Bureau when it comes to deciding what's rural and decides which counties are metropolitan (urban core of 50,000 or more people), micropolitan (urban core of 10,000-49,999 people, considered rural) or neither.

The Health Resources and Services Administration still uses Census data, but takes a more detailed approach when it comes to defining rural.

"The Census and OMB definitions present measurement challenges," according to the HRSA. "The Census overcounts the number of people in rural areas, while the OMB undercounts them."

"We use Rural-Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) codes. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service creates these codes using U.S. Census data … Based on 2010 Census data, 19.7% of the population (60.8 million people) and 86% of the land area of the country are considered rural."

Here's what the HRSA says the Census Bureau and OMB get wrong when labeling rural areas:

  • The Census: "Does not follow city or county boundaries, making it hard to determine if an area is urban or rural. Classifies many suburban areas as rural."

  • The OMB: "Includes some rural areas in metropolitan counties. Example: The Grand Canyon is in a metro county."

If you're asking yourself why the Health Resources and Services Administration cares about properly defining rural areas, it's because it assists in delivering health care to rural communities and provides technical support for rural hospitals by offering grants to rural health care providers.

What part of Florida is the most rural?

Lafayette County, one of the three Florida counties on the list from BusinessElectric.com, ranked in the Top 15 best counties for rural living nationwide.

The other two counties that made the longer list were Highlands County and Liberty County.

According to a February 2023 map of Florida from Florida Health, these are all the counties in Florida that are considered rural:

  • Walton

  • Holmes

  • Washington

  • Jackson

  • Calhoun

  • Gulf

  • Liberty

  • Franklin

  • Gadsden

  • Wakulla

  • Jefferson

  • Taylor

  • Madison

  • Hamilton

  • Suwannee

  • Lafayette

  • Dixie

  • Columbia

  • Gilchrist

  • Levy

  • Baker

  • Union

  • Bradford

  • Nassau

  • Putnam

  • Flagler

  • Hardee

  • DeSoto

  • Highlands

  • Glades

  • Hendry

  • Okeechobee

Where is Lafayette County, Florida? How many people live in Florida's rural counties?

Mayo, a city with a population of just over 1,000, is the county seat of Lafayette County, which is in between Tallahassee and Gainesville (about 1 1/2 hours away from each place).

About 8,000 people live in the whole county, according to U.S. Census Bureau data from July 2023.

As for the other two Florida counties that made the list of best counties for rural living, one is much more rural than the other.

Liberty County's population hovers closer to Lafayette’s, at about 7,970 residents. Highlands County is much less rural than the two other rural counties that made the list, at about 101,230 residents (which is almost double the population count it takes to be considered an urban area by the Census Bureau and OMB).

And although there are more than 90,000 more people living in Highlands County than in Liberty and Lafayette, it still isn’t nearly as populated as some of Florida’s busiest areas.

Orange County, where the county seat is Orlando, has almost 1.5 million residents according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And Miami-Dade County, where the county seat is Miami, has more than 2.7 million residents.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Florida isn't just beaches, theme parks: It's good for rural living, too