The paper presents the issue of differentiation in the context of the level of entrepreneurship in the chosen rural areas of the Małopolska Province. The author makes an attempt to measure the levels ofentrepreneurship indicating their determinants and to find the impact of the big cities on the rural communcs in terms of entrepreneurship. After calculating the data, the rankings of the rural com- munes in three different land-districts surrounding three big cities in the Małopolska Province have been prepared. On that basis the ranking thresholds have been introduced, so as to denote the four levels of entrepreneurship.