The term ‘urban’, as opposed to rural, is related to towns or cities. Urban settlement is a large nucleated settlement in which the majority of the employed inhabitants are engaged in non-agricultural activities. Urban areas may be defined by national governments according to different criteria; for example, size, population density, occupation of the people, and type of local government.
This division between urban and rural is arbitrary and that is why today most of scholars use the term ‘rural- urban continuum’ rather than dichotomy.
The Census of India until 1951 defined an urban settlement as: (i) every municipality, (ii) all civil lines not included within the municipal limits, (iii) every cantonment, and (i v) every other continuous collection of houses inhabited by not less than 5,000 persons. It was customary to treat some places
with less than 5,000 inhabitants as towns in former princely states since they were of local importance. This definition was modified in 1971 Census to treat all places satisfying the following conditions as towns.
1. All municipal corporations, municipal boards, cantonments and notified areas.
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2. All localities though not in themselves local bodies but forming part of a city or town agglomeration.
3. Other places satisfying all the three UN mentioned conditions:
(i) Population exceeds 5,000.
(ii) At least 75 per cent of the male word population engages in non-agricultural pursuits,
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(iii) The density of population exceeds persons per square km. In 1981 Census some mi changes were incorporated whereby livestock, forestry, fishing, hunting, plantations, orchard etc. treated as agricultural activity and places having distinct urban characteristics and physical amenities like industrial area, special project area, large housing colonies, places of tourist interest, railway colonies etc. could be regarded as towns at the discretion of the Director of Census Operations in consultation with the concerned state governments.
All towns and urban agglomerations, so identified, are grouped into following six classes according to population-size:- Class-I Population of 100,000 and above Class-II Population of 50,000 to 99,999 Class-Ill Population of 20,000 to 49,999 Class-IV Population of 10,000 to 19,999 Class-V Population of 5,000 to 9,999 Class-VI Population of less than 5,000.
According to the convention of the Indian Census, any urban place with a population exceeding 1, 00,000 is called a city.
In Urban Geography urban settlements are classified into following six types:
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1. Urban Village-It has semi-urban characteristcs and is also known as urban center, market town, semi-urban town and rural town. It denotes the transition stage of urban development wherein both rural and urban functions are found in mixed form.
2. Town-it is the smallest unit of urban settlement. Here urban functions are well marked although the possibility of some rural activities is not ruled out.
3. City-the term ‘city’ has been derived from the Latin word ‘civitas’. It is a full-fledged urban agglomeration depicting predominance of urban occupations and complex internal structure. In India any town with a population of one lakh or above is termed as city.
4. Metropolis-meaning ‘mother city’ is a large city which serves as a regional capital. In India a city having one million or more population is called metropolis. According to 1981 Census there were 12 metropolitan cities in the country which increased to 35 in 2001 Census. These include Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmadabad, Pune, Surat,Kanpur, Jaipur, Lucknow, Nagpur, Patna, Indore, Vadodara, Bhopal, Coimbatore, Ludhiana, Kochi, Vishakhapatnam,
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Agra, Varanasi, Madurai, Meerut, Nashik, Jabalpur, Jamshedpur, Asansol, Dhanbad, Faridabad, Allahabad, Amritsar, Vijayawada and Rajkot in the descending order of their population-size.
5. Megalopolis-it denotes a large urban region formed by the out-growth of many metropolises. The term was first used by Jean Gottman for the urban region along the north-eastern sea board of U.S.A. Megalopolis also expresses the full mature stage of urban growth. India does not have any such megalopolis because its urbanisation is yet to attain this maturity.
6. Conurbation-it is an urban region consisting of a large metropolis and a number of small towns huddled together. In India such conurbation has been formed by the metropolitan region of Kolkata and 85 big and small towns situated all around it. It lies along the both banks of the Hugli River covering a total area of 569 sq. km. along the right bank of the River it extends from Bansbaria in the north to Uluberia in the south. Similarly Kanchrapara and Baj Baj are the northern and southern extremities of this conurbation along the left bank of the river. Fifty-five urban centers of the conurbation exhibit the predominance of industrial activities. Of these 13 specialise in only one industry. Titagarh is famous for its paper industry.
Similarly Batanagar specialises in shoe making and Naihati, Uttarpara, Halishahr, Bali, Champdani, Kotrang, Uluberia, Bauria, Kamarhati, Bhadreswar and Baj Baj for jute industry. Besides Haora is an important centre of rail transport, Kanchrapara of rail workshop, Garden Reach of ship building, Ishapur of rifle making, and Chandannagar of commercial centre. Due to paucity of space, transport bottlenecks, power breakdown, industrial recession, industrial lockouts and emergence of slums the region is facing a number of problems which have their bearing on the urban environment and quality of life of the inhabitants.