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Research on the dynamics of vulnerability has to-date either focused on a regional or national scale or assessed the influence of city size on the vulnerability of the city itself. Little attention has been paid to how city size influences the vulnerability of surrounding rural areas—this has been investigated in this study. A conceptual framework—City Size and Rural Vulnerability (SCARV)—is proposed and operationalised in the context of Pakistan. A household survey was conducted to collect 325 samples from the flood-affected rural population surrounding three different sized cities in Punjab Province, Pakistan. Indicators of vulnerability were identified and an index-based approach was used to get the composite values of the three components of vulnerability—namely, exposure, susceptibility and capacity. The composite values were then classified to identify the level of vulnerability of each household. Statistical tests …