Economic and social development along the urban–rural continuum: New opportunities to inform policy

•We review the literature on the role of rural–urban linkages in social and economic development.•Size and accessibility of an urban center affect economic prospects and well-being within it and for proximate rural areas.•New global spatial datasets can inform more geographically nuanced policies.•Different ways of conceptualizing rural–urban linkages and research avenues are presented.•A broad range of fields are considered, includinggovernance, regional development, welfare and poverty, and education and health. The economic and social development of nations relies on their population having physical access to services and employment opportunities. For the vast majority of the 3.4 billion people living in rural areas, this largely depends on their access to urban centers of different sizes. Similarly, urban centers depend on their rural hinterlands. Building on the literature on functional areas/territories and the rural–urban continuum as well as insights from central place theory, this review article advances the notion of catchment areas differentiated along an urban-to-rural continuum to better capture these urban–rural interconnections. This article further shows how a new, publicly available dataset operationalizing this concept can shed new light on policymaking across a series of development fields, including institutions and governance, urbanization and food systems, welfare and poverty, access to health and education services, and environmental and natural resource management. Together, the insights support a more geographically nuanced perspective on development.