Abstract. Let Ω ⊂ R n+1 , n ≥ 2, be 1-sided NTA domain also known as uniform domain), i.e., a domain which satisfies interior Corkscrew and Harnack Chain conditions, and assume that ∂Ω is n-dimensional Ahlfors-David regular. We characterize the rectifiability of ∂Ω in terms of the absolute continuity of surface measure with respect to harmonic measure. We also show that these are equivalent to the fact that ∂Ω can be covered H n -a.e. by a countable union of portions of boundaries of bounded chord-arc subdomains of Ω and to the fact that ∂Ω possesses exterior corkscrew points in a qualitative way H n -a.e. Our methods apply to harmonic measure and also to elliptic measures associated with real symmetric second order divergence form elliptic operators with locally Lipschitz coefficients whose derivatives satisfy a natural qualitative Carleson condition.