Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas of land that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture and there may be less air and water pollution than in an urban area. The degree to which areas of wilderness are included in the term varies; very large wilderness areas are not likely to be described by the term in most contexts.

In most parts of the world rural areas have been declining since the 19th century or earlier, both as a proportion of land area, and in terms of the proportion of the population living in them. Urbanization encroaches on rural land, and the mechanization of agriculture has reduced the number of workers needed to work the land, while alternative employment is typically easier to obtain in cities. In parts of the developed world urban sprawl has greatly reduced the areas that can be called rural, and land use planning measures are used to protect the character of rural areas in various ways.

Keith Lionel Urban (born 26 October 1967) is a Australian country music singer, songwriter and guitarist whose commercial success has been mainly in the United States and Australia. Urban was born in New Zealand and began his career in Australia at an early age. In 1991, he released a self-titled debut album, and charted four singles in Australia before moving to the United States in 1992. Eventually, Urban found work as a session guitarist before starting a band known as The Ranch, which recorded one studio album on Capitol Records and charted two singles on the Billboard country charts.

Still signed to Capitol, he made his solo American debut in 1999 with the album Keith Urban. Certified platinum in the U.S., it also produced his first American Number One in "But for the Grace of God". His breakthrough hit was the Number One "Somebody Like You", from his second Capitol album Golden Road (2002). This album also earned Urban his first Grammy Award win for "You'll Think of Me", its fourth single and the fourth Billboard Number One of his career. 2004's Be Here, his third American album, produced three more Number Ones, and became his highest-selling album, earning 4× Multi-Platinum certification. Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing was released in 2006, producing the record-setting No.17 country chart debut of "Once in a Lifetime", as well as Urban's second Grammy for the song "Stupid Boy", while a Greatest Hits package entitled Greatest Hits: 18 Kids followed in late 2007. This album was re-released a year later as Greatest Hits: 19 Kids with one track added: the number one "You Look Good in My Shirt", which he had previously recorded on Golden Road. Additional albums Defying Gravity and Get Closer were released on 31 March 2009 and 16 November 2010, respectively.

Li Keqiang (born 1 July 1955) is the Executive Vice-Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, the seventh ranked member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the People's Republic of China's de facto highest decision-making body. As Premier Wen Jiabao's top lieutenant, Li's official portfolio includes economic development, price controls, finance, climate change, and macroeconomic management.

Li rose through the ranks of the Communist Youth League. From 1998 to 2004, Li served as the Governor of Henan and the province's CPC party chief, and then the Liaoning party chief, an office that made him first-in-charge in that province. Li is speculated as the likely successor to Wen Jiabao as Premier in the "fifth generation" (Xi-Li Administration) of CPC leadership.

Li Keqiang was born in Dingyuan County, Anhui on 1 July 1955. His father was a local official in Anhui. Li graduated from high school in 1974, during the Cultural Revolution, and was sent for rural labour in Fengyang County, Anhui, where he eventually joined the Communist Party of China and made his way to becoming the party head of the local production team. He was awarded with the honour of Outstanding Individual in the Study of Mao Zedong Thought during this time.

Billy Collins (born William James Collins March 22, 1941) is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute, Florida. Collins was recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library (1992) and selected as the New York State Poet for 2004-2006.

Collins was born in New York City to William and Katherine Collins. Katherine Collins was a nurse who stopped working to raise the couple's only child. Mrs. Collins had the ability to recite verses on almost any subject, which she often did, and cultivated in her young son the love of words, both written and spoken. Billy Collins attended Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains and received a B.A. (English) from the College of the Holy Cross in 1963; he received his M.A. and Ph.D in English from the University of California, Riverside. His professors at Riverside included Victorian scholar and poet Robert Peters. In 1975 Collins founded The Mid Atlantic Review with his good friend and co-editor, Michael Shannon.

A Darcy Before I Die - satirical poem by Ronnie Taheny (c) 2008

Colin Andrew Firth, CBE (born 10 September 1960) is an English film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. In 2011, Firth received an Academy Award for his portrayal of King George VI in The King's Speech, a performance that also earned him the Golden Globe, BAFTA and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor, amongst others. The previous year, he received his first Academy Award nomination, for his leading role in A Single Man, a performance that won him a BAFTA Award. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2011.

Firth was born in England. His mother, Shirley Jean (née Rolles), was a comparative religion lecturer at King Alfred's College Winchester (now the University of Winchester), and his father, David Norman Lewis Firth, was a history lecturer (also at King Alfred's) and education officer for the Nigerian Government. Firth has a sister, Kate, and a younger brother, Jonathan, who is also an actor. Firth's parents were raised in India, because his maternal grandparents, Congregationalist ministers, and his paternal grandfather, an Anglican priest, performed missionary work abroad. Firth spent part of his childhood in Nigeria, where his father was teaching.