Human Geography
Types of Urban Settlements
World Geography
ভূগোল সম্পর্কিত যে কোনো লেখা আমাদের পেজের মাধ্যমে সবার কাছে পৌছেদিতে আপনারা ও এগিয়ে আসুন
Types of Urban Settlements
Saturday, August 12, 2017
0
An urban settlement may be linear, square, star
or crescent shaped. In fact, the form of the
settlement, architecture and style of buildings
and other structures are an outcome of its
historical and cultural traditions.
Towns and cities of developed and
developing countries reflect marked differences
in planning and development. While most cities
in developed countries are planned, most
urban settlements of developing countries have
evolved historically with irregular shapes. For
example, Chandigarh and Canberra are
planned cities, while smaller town in India have
evolved historically from walled cities to large
urban sprawls.
Depending on the size and the services available
and functions rendered, urban centers are
designated as town, city, million city,
conurbation, megalopolis.
1. Town
The concept of ‘town’ can best be understood
with reference to ‘village’. Population size is not
the only criterion. Functional contrasts between
towns and villages may not always be clearcut,
but specific functions such as,
manufacturing, retail and wholesale trade, and
professional services exist in towns
2. City
A city may be regarded as a leading town, which
has outstripped its local or regional rivals. In
the words of Lewis Mumford, “ the city is in fact
the physical form of the highest and most
complex type of associative life”. Cities are
much larger than towns and have a greater
number of economic functions. They tend to
have transport terminals, major financial
institutions and regional administrative offices.
When the population crosses the one million
mark it is designated as a million city
3. Conurbation
The term conurbation was coined by Patrick
Geddes in 1915 and applied to a large area of
urban development that resulted from the
merging of originally separate towns or cities.
Greater London, Manchester, Chicago and
Tokyo are examples. Can you find out an
example from India?
4. Megalopolis
This Greek word meaning “great city”, was
popularised by Jean Gottman (1957) and
signifies ‘super- metropolitan’ region extending, as union of conurbations. The urban
landscape stretching from Boston in the north
to south of Washington in U.S.A. is the best
known example of a megalopolis.
5. Million City
The number of million cities in the world has
been increasing as never before. London
reached the million mark in 1800, followed by
Paris in 1850, New York in 1860, and by 1950
there were around 80 such cities. The rate of
increase in the number of million cities has been
three-fold in every three decades – around 160
in 1975 to around 438 in 2005.
To read More Download now
Previous article
Next article
ভূগোল সম্পর্কিত যে কোনো লেখা আমাদের পেজের মাধ্যমে সবার কাছে পৌছেদিতে আপনারা ও এগিয়ে আসুন
Leave Comments
Post a Comment