Rural and urban types
A settlement is a place where people build homes and live. Rural settlements depend mainly on farming, fishing, forests and other primary work. Urban settlements depend on industry, trade and services.
Types of rural settlements
- Clustered (compact): houses close together, fields around. Fertile plains, north-east hill tops for safety, Bundelkhand and Rajasthan where water is scarce.
- Semi-clustered (fragmented): a main cluster with some houses split away, often social groups living apart. Gujarat plain, parts of Rajasthan.
- Hamleted: one village split into several hamlets (panna, para, palli, nagla, dhani). Middle and lower Ganga plain, Chhattisgarh, lower Himalaya valleys.
- Dispersed (isolated): single huts far apart, in hills, forests or dry land. Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, Himachal, Kerala.
What decides the type? Physical factors (land, water, climate), social factors (caste and community groups) and safety.
Urban settlements
The census calls a place a town if it is a statutory town (has a municipality, corporation or cantonment) or a census town: at least 5,000 people, at least 400 people per sq km and at least 75% of working men in non-farm work.
Evolution of towns
Towns in India have grown since the Harappan times. We group them into three periods:
- Ancient towns (over 2,000 years): grew as religious and cultural centres or capitals. Varanasi, Prayagraj, Pataliputra (Patna), Madurai.
- Medieval towns (about 100 of today's towns): capitals and forts of kingdoms. Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Agra, Nagpur.
- Modern towns: first trading ports set up by Europeans (Surat, Daman, Goa, Puducherry), then British ports and capitals (Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata), hill stations (Shimla, Darjeeling) and cantonments. After 1947, planned capitals (Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Dispur) and industrial towns (Durgapur, Bhilai, Bokaro, Sindri), plus satellite towns like Ghaziabad and Gurugram.
Urbanisation
Urbanisation is the rise in the share of people who live in towns and cities.
- 1901: about 11% urban. 1951: 17%. 2011: 31% (about 37.7 crore people).
- The number of million-plus cities (10 lakh or more people) rose to 53 in 2011.
- Largest urban agglomerations: Greater Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru.
Why? Jobs in industry and services, better schools and hospitals, and villages near cities becoming towns. Problems: slums, traffic, pollution, water and housing shortage.
An urban agglomeration is a town plus its growing outer parts joined into one city area.
Functional classification
Many towns do many jobs, but one job often stands out. We name the town after it:
| Function | Examples |
|---|---|
| Administrative | New Delhi, Chandigarh, Bhopal, Shillong |
| Industrial | Jamshedpur, Bhilai, Coimbatore, Mumbai |
| Transport (ports, junctions) | Kandla, Kochi, Visakhapatnam; Itarsi, Katni |
| Commercial | Kolkata, Satna, Ludhiana |
| Mining | Raniganj, Jharia, Digboi, Singrauli |
| Garrison (cantonment) | Ambala, Jalandhar, Mhow, Udhampur |
| Educational | Roorkee, Varanasi, Aligarh, Pilani |
| Religious and cultural | Varanasi, Mathura, Amritsar, Madurai, Puri, Ajmer |
| Tourist | Nainital, Mussoorie, Shimla, Pachmarhi, Jodhpur, Ooty |
Big cities like Delhi are multi-functional.
Smart Cities Mission
The Smart Cities Mission began in June 2015 to improve 100 cities. A smart city gives its people basic services and a clean, safe life using smart solutions.
- Core needs: assured water and power, sanitation and waste management, public transport, affordable housing, digital connectivity, e-governance, safety of women, children and elderly, health and education.
- Area-based development: retrofitting (improve an old area), redevelopment (rebuild an area) and greenfield (build a new area on empty land).
- Pan-city solutions: one smart idea for the whole city, e.g. a traffic control centre.
Try it
Walk or look around your area for 15 minutes. Draw a small sketch of where the houses are. Is the pattern clustered, semi-clustered, hamleted or dispersed? Then list the main jobs people do and decide the function of your nearest town. Compare with steps 1 and 5 of the 3D.
Key formulas and definitions
- Census town: ≥ 5,000 people, ≥ 400 per sq km, ≥ 75% male workers in non-farm work
- Rural types: clustered, semi-clustered, hamleted, dispersed
- Urban share: 11% (1901) → 31% (2011)
- Smart Cities Mission: 2015, 100 cities
Worked examples
1. A place has 8,000 people, a density of 600 per sq km and 80% of its working men in non-farm jobs, but no municipality. Is it a town?
Yes, a census town. It meets all three tests: more than 5,000 people, more than 400 per sq km and more than 75% male non-farm workers.
2. Why are clustered villages common in the Ganga plain but dispersed ones in Meghalaya?
The Ganga plain is flat and fertile, so many farm families live close together near shared wells and fields. Meghalaya is hilly with small patches of farmland, so each family lives near its own plot, far from others.
3. The urban share rose from 27.8% in 2001 to 31.2% in 2011. By how many percentage points did it rise?
31.2 − 27.8 = 3.4 percentage points in ten years.
4. Classify: Digboi, Mhow, Kandla, Roorkee.
Digboi: mining (oil). Mhow: garrison. Kandla: transport (port). Roorkee: educational.
Common mistakes
- Thinking every big village is a town. A census town must pass all three tests (5,000 people, 400 per sq km, 75% non-farm male workers).
- Mixing hamleted and semi-clustered. Hamleted = several separate units with the same village name; semi-clustered = one cluster plus a few split-off houses.
- Calling Mumbai only a port. Big cities are multi-functional; we classify by the main function.
- Saying the Smart Cities Mission builds only new cities. Most work is retrofitting and redeveloping old areas.