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Rural is changing. This change is occurring on many levels, including institutional, cultural, residential, employment, and resource management. While urbanization continues to be a trend, rural persists as place for home, retirement, work, and recreation. The structures that have been responsible for maintaining and enhancing rural areas are also changing. On the one hand for example, tourism is promoted as a new economy, while on the other, rural areas struggle to maintain existing services and heritage elements. Adjacent to, or at least within the commuting sheds of urban centres, rural communities and lands are encroached upon by the shear growth of cities or further a field by those who seek the rural idyll. The role of work is also dynamic across resource sectors. The papers included in this volume address each of these rural topics and issues. They are products of special sessions held at the 2001 and 2002 Annual General Meetings of the Canadian Association of Geographers (CAG). The sessions were organized by the Rural Geography Study Group of the CAG and the International Geographic Union’s Commission of the Sustainability of Rural Systems.