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A district has 24 lakh people, and 6 lakh of them live in towns. How urbanised is it?
Divide 6 by 24 and multiply by 100. That gives 25 percent.
Right. In 1951 about 17 percent of Indians lived in towns and cities. By 2011 it was about 31 percent. What does that tell you?
The share of people living in towns has nearly doubled.
Exactly. That rising share is what we mean by urbanisation.
So urbanisation is about the percentage in towns, not just the number of people.
The Census calls a place a census town if it passes three tests. Who remembers them?
At least 5,000 people, at least 75 percent of male main workers in non-farm work, and at least 400 people per square kilometre.
Good. Settlement A has 7,200 people, 80 percent non-farm workers and a density of 520. Is it a town?
Yes, it passes all three tests.
Settlement B has only 4,600 people. What about B?
It fails the population test, so it is not a census town, even if it passes the others.
A city of 10 lakh has 18,000 births, 7,000 deaths, 25,000 people moving in and 5,000 moving out in a year. Find its growth.
Natural increase is 11,000, and net migration is 20,000. Total growth is 31,000.
Which part is bigger?
Migration. Most of the growth comes from people moving in.
That is what happened in Bengaluru, where information technology jobs drew young people from all over India. What problems did fast growth bring?
Heavy traffic, crowded housing and pressure on water and the city's lakes.
urban population ÷ total population × 100, used to compare places of different sizes.
the urban share rose from about 17% in 1951 to about 31% in 2011.
at least 5,000 people, at least 75% of male main workers in non-farm work and at least 400 persons per square kilometre.
natural increase, net migration and reclassification.
new industries, such as information technology in Bengaluru, pull people into cities.
satellite towns such as Navi Mumbai are built to share the load of crowded cities.
A district with 24 lakh people, 6 lakh of them in towns, has a level of urbanisation of 6 ÷ 24 × 100 = 25%.
A settlement of 7,200 people with 80% of male main workers in non-farm jobs and 520 persons per square kilometre is a census town.
A city of 10 lakh with 11,000 more births than deaths and 20,000 more arrivals than departures grows by 31,000, or 3.1%, in a year.
Navi Mumbai, planned from the early 1970s across the harbour from Mumbai, is a satellite town built to share the growth of a crowded city.
Five thousand people, seventy-five in trade, four hundred a square kilometre, and a town is made.
A village called Rampur grew bigger every year. When its people passed 5,000, most men worked in shops and workshops instead of fields, and houses packed in at over 400 to a square kilometre, the census officers wrote "town" beside its name for the first time.
5-75-400: the three numbers of the census-town test.
N.M.R. - Natural increase, Migration, Reclassification: the three ways cities grow.
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How is the level of urbanisation calculated?
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About what share of India's population was urban in 2011?
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What are the three tests for a census town?
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Name three sources of urban growth.
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What is a satellite town?
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The process by which a growing share of a country's population comes to live in towns and cities.
The percentage of a population living in urban areas.
A place with a municipal corporation, municipality, cantonment board or notified town area committee.
A place with at least 5,000 people, at least 75% of male main workers in non-agricultural work and at least 400 persons per square kilometre.
The growth of population when births are more than deaths.
The number of people moving into a place minus the number moving out.
Counting a place as urban because it now meets the tests for a town, or because a city's boundary has been extended.
A planned town near a large city that shares the city's growth.
Worked examples of urbanisation in India: measuring how urbanised a place is, deciding when a village counts as a town, working out where a city's growth comes from, and seeing how Bengaluru and Navi Mumbai grew.
Urbanisation is the process by which a growing share of a country's people come to live in towns and cities. This lesson makes the idea concrete through examples. It calculates the level of urbanisation for a district and for India, which rose from about 17% in 1951 to about 31% in 2011. It applies the Census of India's tests for a town, separates a city's growth into natural increase and migration, and explains how villages can become towns. Two case studies, Bengaluru's growth as an information technology centre and the planned city of Navi Mumbai, show how jobs and planning shape urban growth.
The level of urbanisation is the percentage of a population that lives in urban areas:
Level of urbanisation = urban population ÷ total population × 100
The Census of India treats two kinds of places as towns:
Settlement A has 7,200 people, 80% of its male main workers in non-farm jobs and a density of 520 persons per square kilometre. It passes all three tests, so it is a census town. Settlement B has 4,600 people, so it is not a census town, even if it passes the other two tests.
A city's population grows in three ways: natural increase (more births than deaths), migration (more people moving in than out) and reclassification (villages becoming towns, or city boundaries being extended).
A city of 10 lakh people records 18,000 births and 7,000 deaths in a year, while 25,000 people move in and 5,000 move out.
Here, migration supplies most of the growth. Reclassification can also be large: between 2001 and 2011 the number of census towns in India rose from 1,362 to 3,894, as many large villages came to meet the three tests.
Since the 1990s, Bengaluru has grown into India's best-known centre of the information technology industry, often called the "Silicon Valley of India". Jobs in software companies, research institutions and services attracted young people from all over the country. The city grew quickly, but this growth also brought heavy traffic, crowded housing and pressure on its water supply and lakes, showing that urbanisation brings both opportunities and problems.
As Mumbai became more and more crowded, a new city, Navi Mumbai, was planned from the early 1970s on the mainland across the harbour, to take some of the pressure off the island city. Planned towns built near a big city to share its growth are often called satellite towns. They show one way governments try to manage rapid urbanisation.
Urbanisation is happening across the world. According to the United Nations, more than half of the world's people now live in urban areas, a milestone first passed around 2007.