One of the biggest challenges of the conference theme “rural-urban continuum” was the definition of the rural and urban landscape. In the view of Jefferson Fox from the East West Center, Honolulu (USA), this distinction between urban and rural is not useful when large areas and populations are caught between the two. Especially the peri-urban area is lacking some form a definition or formal status, because it is a landscape in transition, facing special challenges with regards to health, transportation, housing and the environment. Peri-urban places are dynamic places and should be of interest to scientists, because the local governments are not considering them yet. Traditional ways failed to identify such transitional peri-urban places and therefore will fail to facilitate early warning systems regarding of health risks or incidence of diseases among livestock. So, how can toilets actually help to identify a peri-urban area? One slide of the presentation nicely illustrated that simple latrines are used in rural areas, a toilet in the ground (sulabh) identified the peri-urban and flush toilets indicated the developed urban areas. This categorization obviously raised some questions about the term development and if flush toilets are really an indicator for “development” (if the term is not properly defined) -considering the ecological footprint, the usage of chemicals, pollution of water etc.. Nonetheless, planners and policymakers need tools to identify the peri-urban for better targeting public goods and services to the transitional peri-urban areas – different toilet types could be one of them.