The Remote Rural Areas theme was a major research theme of the Chronic Poverty Research Centre between 2000 and 2005. Its aim was to explore the relationship between remoteness and chronic poverty. It examined the nature of geographic capital and spatial poverty traps and explored what it was about remoteness that intensified poverty drivers and poverty maintainers, pushing people into poverty and keeping them there. Kate Bird led the theme and collaborated with CRPC country teams to produce a number of working papers, journal articles and book chapters. The work contributed to later work on chronic poverty and spatial poverty traps.