These 10 Counties Are Easily The Most Rural In All Of Montana

It's not really surprising that Montana consists of sparsely populated land. We're the 4th biggest state in The Nation, yet we are ranked #43 when it comes to population. That's a lot of land for not a lot of people.

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So what makes a county a rural county?

According to the US Census Bureau land is considered rural if it's not an urban area. So then what makes something urban? That might surprise you. To be considered urban you only need 2,500 people living in one area. I don't know if I'd consider Conrad to be "urban", but with their 2,758 population they would be.

In American there are 702 counties that are considered 100% rural using the criteria from the US Census Bureau. Montana has thirty-four of our fifty-six counties are considered 100% rural. What's even more amazing is just how much is considered rural when you talk about the most populated county, Yellowstone county. They are considered 97.7% rural. If they were the size of Silver Bow county, Montana's smallest country by land size, that number would be much lower.

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That's how Stacker.com was able to rank the Montana counties by how rural they were. Take the amount of people in a county, the size of land in the county and then you get how rural they are. The results are kind of surprising. I figured Petroleum county would be the most rural considering there is only 496 people there, but they didn't come in at number 1.

So check out the gallery below to see the top 10 most rural counties in Montana.

These 10 Counties Are Easily The Most Rural In All Of Montana

Thanks to Stacker.com we're able to rank the top 10 most rural counties in Montana. All statistics credited to Stacker.

KEEP READING: The Top 5 Most Rural Post Offices Of Small Town Montana

Some of Montana's rural post offices don't even make it onto Google Street View, but they're incredibly important hubs in rural parts of the state. We did a little digging and found a few hidden gems. Take a look!