A set R ⊂ N is called rational if it is well-approximable by finite unions of arithmetic progressions, meaning that for every ǫ > 0 there exists a set B = r i=1 a i N+b i , where a 1 , . . . , a r , b 1 , . . . , b r ∈ N, such thatExamples of rational sets include many classical sets of number-theoretical origin such as the set of squarefree numbers, the set of abundant numbers, or sets of the form Φ x := {n ∈ N :< x}, where x ∈ [0, 1] and ϕ is Euler's totient function. We investigate the combinatorial and dynamical properties of rational sets and obtain new results in ergodic Ramsey theory. Among other things, we show that if R ⊂ N is a rational set with d(R) > 0, then the following are equivalent:(b) R is an averaging set of polynomial single recurrence.(c) R is an averaging set of polynomial multiple recurrence.As an application, we show that if R ⊂ N is rational and divisible, then for any set E ⊂ N with d(E) > 0 and any polynomials p i ∈ Q[t], i = 1, . . . , ℓ, which satisfy p i (Z) ⊂ Z and p i (0) = 0 for all i ∈ {1, . . . , ℓ}, there exists β > 0 such that the sethas positive lower density.Ramsey-theoretical applications naturally lead to problems in symbolic dynamics, which involve rationally almost periodic sequences (sequences whose level-sets are rational). We prove that if A is a finite alphabet, η ∈ A N is rationally almost periodic, S denotes the left-shift on A Z and X := {y ∈ A Z : each finite word appearing in y appears in η}, then η is a generic point for an S-invariant probability measure ν on X such that the measure preserving system (X, ν, S) is ergodic and has rational discrete spectrum.