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DR - A C - Scott - 1

The document discusses various ways that scholars have classified urban settlements. It outlines classifications based on stages of growth, population size, and functions. For stages of growth, it discusses nuclear, formative, and modern stages, as well as infantile, juvenile, mature, and senility stages. Population size classifications include small town, major town, city, and metropolis. Functional classifications include administrative towns, commercial towns, market towns, mining towns, industrial towns, and cultural, defensive, and residential towns. The document provides examples for many of the classifications.

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10 views

DR - A C - Scott - 1

The document discusses various ways that scholars have classified urban settlements. It outlines classifications based on stages of growth, population size, and functions. For stages of growth, it discusses nuclear, formative, and modern stages, as well as infantile, juvenile, mature, and senility stages. Population size classifications include small town, major town, city, and metropolis. Functional classifications include administrative towns, commercial towns, market towns, mining towns, industrial towns, and cultural, defensive, and residential towns. The document provides examples for many of the classifications.

Uploaded by

Souryabrata Pal
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We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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CLASSIFICATION OF URBAN

SETTLEMENTS

Dr. A.C. Scott


Associate Professor
Department of Geography
Isabella Thoburn College,
Lucknow
CLASSIFICATION OF URBAN SETTLEMENTS

“URBAN” is not a new term. It is always referred to in “RURAL” terms. The growth and
potential of urban settlements is yet not fully understood or realized, else it could have been
controlled and its after effect could have analysed. We should not ignore the peculiarity of
genuine urban growth. Urban settlements could be studied a s a referral code of urban
growth. And urbanization leads further to the classification of urban settlements which is the
focus point right now. J.M Houstan (A Social Geography of Europe, Duckworth, 1953) has
recognized three stages.
(i) The Nuclear Stage: represented by central area of a town inside wall like Paris, Moscow.
(ii) The Formative stage: houses outside the central area along lines of transport.
(iii)The Modern Stage: Development of motor transport and growth of suburban towns in
a large way.

Griffith Taylor (Urban Geography, London Methven, 1949) has examined 4 stages of growth
of urban settlement of Canada.
(i) The infantile stage: Towns where residential and commercial areas cannot be
separated and buildings are haphazardly distributed.
(ii) The Juvenile Stage: The skyline of the houses rises and factories are also established.
e.g. Munger.
(iii) The Mature Stage: This stage is marked by well separated residential and commercial
areas. The rise and new colonies on the fringe and vertical expansion is the rule. E.g. Delhi,
Patna, Ontario, London.
(iv) Senility: In this stage the growth stops. Decay of some areas and decline in economic
development starts. e.g. Yorkshire, Lancashire, Durban, Agra, Mathura, Muzaffarnagar.
All these stages engulf the characteristics found today in the urban settlements.
Hence a general classification is given by Lewis Mumford herewith,
(i) Eopolis: A small town of village origin based on agriculture, mining and fishing.
(ii) Polis: Market town with wholesale grain market.
(iii) Metropolis: It is a large city with 10 lakhs of population.
(iv) Megapolis: When main cities and metropolis coalesce to form a giant urban centre.
(v) Tyranopolis: In this country wide urbanization predominated the scene. Here the
display and expense become the measurement of culture.
(vi) Nekropolis: It is known as ghost city or dead city. This stage come due to war,
famine, diseases, decay of culture.

Besides all these a general classification is as under:


(i) Village
(ii) Town
(iii) City
(iv) Metropolis
(v) Conurbation
(vi) Megapolis
(vii) Tyranoplis
(viii) Ecumonopolis
(ix) Nekropolis
Classification based on population:
1. Small town – Less than 50,000 population
2. Major towns – 50,000 to 99.999 population
3. City – 1,00,000 population
4. Metropolis – 1,000,000 population

Classification based on functions:


1. Administrative Towns: These are mainly the capital city, centres of provinces, states, district
headquarters.
These are organized. E.g. Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai etc.

2. Commercial Towns: These are towns where retailing and trading is the biggest function. It houses,
financial offices, business buildings, banks and offer commercial services. E.g. Kanpur, Nagpur, Agra,
Bhopal, London, New York.

3. Market Towns: These are the places of collection and distribution of various goods as main function
and perform exchange activity. Usually these towns have mandis, wide range of shops, stores, godowns,
warehouses, supported by a good network of transport facilities.

4. Mining Towns: The main function of such towns is exploitation of minerals from mines. Their
location is governed by the availability of mineral resources. E.g. Raniganj, Jharia, Bokaro etc.

5. Industrial Towns: These towns mainly perform secondary activities of changing raw materials into
finished goods. Such towns provide facilities of power, labour, market, efficient network of
communication and transport.e.g. Bangalore (watches), Bokaro ( steel), Surat ( Textiles).
6. Cultural Towns:
(i) Educational – Patna, Allahabad, Bangalore, Cambridge, Oxford.
(ii) Entertainment – Mumbai, Hollywood.
(iii) Religious – Varanasi, Rishikesh, Jerusalem, Ayodhya, Mecca.
(iv) Resort –
(a) Coastal Resorts – Puri, Mumbai, Goa, Kochi.
(b) Hill Resorts – Shimla, Mussorie, Nainital.

7. Defensive Towns: Such towns may be naval dock, air bases and are characterized by
barracks, cantonment special air fields, training centres for army, equipped hospitals. E.g.
Ambala, Dehradun, Cochi, Chennai.

8. Residential Towns: These are mainly new and planned towns located far from the
congested cities and provide residential facilities for urban people. These are well planned
and have healthy environment. E.g. Chandigarh.

Later others have classified the urban settlements as- Secondary and Tertiary.
The settlements performing industrial activities are secondary and settlements performing
services are tertiary settlements.

Reference:
R.B. Mandal, Urban Geography

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