Settlement Geography
Spatial patterns, morphology, and evolution of rural and urban settlements.
Welcome to the Settlement Geography module.
Rural Settlements
Rural Settlements: Types and Patterns
Warning📘 Syllabus Coverage
| Syllabus | Topic Details |
|---|---|
| NEP-2020 | Unit III — Types and Patterns of Rural Settlements |
| UGC NET | Site/situation; Types, size, spacing; Internal morphology of rural settlements |
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NoteKey Concepts
- Settlement: Any form of human habitation from a single dwelling to a megalopolis.
- Site vs. Situation: Site is the exact physical ground (e.g., hilltop, riverbank). Situation is the relative location concerning surrounding features.
- Types of Rural Settlements:
- Clustered (Nucleated): Houses built close together, sharing common land/amenities (common in fertile plains).
- Semi-clustered: Nucleated core with dispersed hamlets around it.
- Hamleted: Physically fragmented into several units bearing a common name (Panna, Para, Dhani).
- Dispersed (Scattered): Isolated farms/dwellings separated by fields/pastures (mountain/arid regions).
- Patterns: Determined by site lines — Linear (along roads/rivers), Rectangular, Circular (around lakes), Star-like (crossroads).
Urban Settlements
Urban Settlements and Urbanization
Warning📘 Syllabus Coverage
| Syllabus | Topic Details |
|---|---|
| NEP-2020 | Unit III — Concept/Classification of Urban Settlements; World Urbanization |
| UGC NET | Urbanization process; Settlement systems |
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NoteKey Concepts
- Urban Criteria: Population size, density, and occupational structure (majority non-agricultural). Varies by country (India: 5000 pop, 400 density, 75% male non-agri workforce).
- Classification: Towns, Cities, Million-plus cities, Conurbations (Geddes), Megalopolis (Gottmann).
- Functional Classification: Administrative, Industrial, Transport, Commercial, Mining, Garrison/Cantonment, Educational, Religious/Cultural cities.
- World Urbanization trends: Developed world is highly urbanized (>75%) but growing slowly. Developing world (Global South) is rapidly urbanizing — fueling the growth of mega-cities and peri-urban sprawl.
Internal Morphology of Cities and Urban Models
Warning📘 Syllabus Coverage
| Syllabus | Topic Details |
|---|---|
| UGC NET | Internal morphology of urban settlements; Urban fringe, City-region concepts |
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NoteKey Concepts
- Urban Morphology: The physical layout, structure, and land-use patterns of a city. CBD (Central Business District), residential zones, industrial zones.
- Classical Models of Urban Structure:
- Concentric Zone Model (Burgess, 1925): City grows in rings from CBD outward (Transition zone, working-class, commuter zone). Based on Chicago.
- Sector Model (Hoyt, 1939): Growth happens in wedge-shaped sectors radiating from CBD along transport routes.
- Multiple Nuclei Model (Harris & Ullman, 1945): A city has multiple centers/nodes around which different activities cluster.
- Urban Fringe: The transition zone where urban and rural land uses mix. Zone of rapid change, land speculation, and infrastructure deficit.
- City-Region: The city and its surrounding hinterland that are functionally integrated (commuting, trade, services).
Concepts of Urban, Urbanization, and Urbanism
Warning📘 Syllabus Coverage
| Syllabus | Topic Details |
|---|---|
| NEP-2020 | Unit I — Concept of Urban, Urbanization and Urbanism |
| UGC NET | Settlement systems |
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NoteKey Concepts
- Urban: An area characterized by high population density, built environment, and non-agricultural occupations.
- Urbanization: The demographic process (structural shift) whereby a growing percentage of a population lives in urban areas. Linked to industrialization and economic development.
- Urbanism: A way of life, attitudes, values, and patterns of behavior characteristic of city dwellers (Louis Wirth).
- Urban Economic Momentum: If the Basic-to-non-basic ratio is equal to 1, it generally indicates Urban stagnation (equilibrium between wealth creation and local services).
- **Key Urban Development Theories:*
- Gordon Childe: Viewed the neolithic village as the foundation of urban life.
- Henri Pirenne: Urban development centers around production of agricultural surplus.
- Lewis Mumford: Viewed urban growth as an organic process rooted in human social needs. He proposed that the first towns originated from ‘cities of the dead’ (necropolises) rather than living settlements.
- Pre-industrial Urban Growth: The best combination as a precondition for pre-industrial urban growth is Population – Environment – Technology – Social organization.
- Scope of Urban Geography: Studies the spatial aspects of urban development, the internal structure of cities, and the relationships between cities conceptually and functionally.
Classification of Urban Settlements
Warning📘 Syllabus Coverage
| Syllabus | Topic Details |
|---|---|
| NEP-2020 | Unit I — Census vs statutory towns, functional classification |
| UGC NET | Types, size, and spacing of settlements |
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NoteKey Concepts
- Statutory Town: Places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee.
- Census Town: Places satisfying 3 criteria: Pop > 5,000; > 75% male main working population in non-agricultural pursuits; Density > 400 persons/sq.km.
- **Census Town Classes:*
- Class-I: 100,000 and above
- Class-II: 50,000 to 99,999
- Class-III: 20,000 to 49,999
- Class-IV: 10,000 to 19,999
- Class-V: 5,000 to 9,999
- Class-VI: Less than 5,000
- Functional Classification: Categorizing cities by their dominant economic activity (e.g., Administrative - New Delhi, Industrial - Jamshedpur, Religious - Varanasi). Ashish Bose and Ashok Mitra classifications in India.
- Emerging Concepts: Smart City (technology-driven efficiency), Global City (Sassen - nodes of global finance/trade like NY, London, Tokyo), Compact City (high density, transit-oriented).
Models of Internal Urban Structure
Warning📘 Syllabus Coverage
| Syllabus | Topic Details |
|---|---|
| NEP-2020 | Unit III — Burgess, Hoyt, Harris and Ullman |
| UGC NET | Internal morphology of urban settlements |
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NoteKey Concepts
- Concentric Zone Model (Burgess, 1925): City grows outward in concentric rings from the CBD (Central Business District). Based on Chicago. Driven by land value and social mobility.
- Sector Model (Hoyt, 1939): City grows in wedge-shaped sectors radiating from the CBD along transport corridors. High-class residential seeks best amenities/highest ground.
- Multiple Nuclei Model (Harris & Ullman, 1945): Rejects single CBD. States that cities develop several nodes of growth, each with specialised use (nuclei), driven by agglomeration and repelling forces.
Central Place Theory and Settlement Hierarchy
Warning📘 Syllabus Coverage
| Syllabus | Topic Details |
|---|---|
| NEP-2020 | Unit II & III — Hierarchy of urban settlements, Christaller |
| UGC NET | Christaller’s Central Place Theory, Market Centre Theory |
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NoteKey Concepts
- Christaller’s Central Place Theory (1933): Explains the size, spacing, and number of settlements.
- Assumptions: Isotropic plain, uniform transport cost, rational consumers.
- Concepts: Threshold (minimum population to support a service), Range (maximum distance people will travel).
- Hierarchy: Hexagonal trade areas. K=3 (Marketing), K=4 (Transport), K=7 (Administrative).
- Nesting Pattern (K=3): The progression of the number of settlements in successive orders follows the sequence **1, 3, 9, 27, 81…*
- August Lösch (1940): Modified Christaller by building the model from the bottom up (starting from the lowest order goods) to maximize consumer welfare and create complex economic landscapes.
Urban Fringe, Ghettoization, and Slums
Warning📘 Syllabus Coverage
| Syllabus | Topic Details |
|---|---|
| NEP-2020 | Unit II — Slum, ghettoization, gentrification, Peri-urban |
| UGC NET | Urban fringe, Ecological processes of urban growth |
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NoteKey Concepts
- Peri-Urban / Urban Fringe: The transition zone where urban and rural land uses mix. Highly dynamic, characterized by land speculation, shifting agriculture, and lacking urban amenities.
- Slums: Informal settlements lacking basic services, characterized by overcrowding and poverty. Result of rapid rural-urban migration exceeding city capacity.
- Ghettoization: Spatial isolation of an ethnic, religious, or socio-economic minority group (intentional or systemic).
- Gentrification: Renewal/rebuilding of deteriorated urban neighborhoods by influx of more affluent residents, often displacing poorer original inhabitants.
Trends of Urbanization in India
Warning📘 Syllabus Coverage
| Syllabus | Topic Details |
|---|---|
| NEP-2020 | Unit III — Trends and patterns of urbanization in World and India |
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NoteKey Concepts
- Indian Urbanization: Currently around 35% (census/estimates). Characterized as “over-urbanization” or “urbanization without industrialization” where pushing forces (rural poverty) are stronger than pulling forces (urban jobs).
- Top-Heavy Structure: Growth is highly concentrated in Class I cities and metropolises, causing regional imbalances and straining infrastructure.
- Urban Policy and Governance: AMRUT, Smart Cities Mission, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Urban). Governance involves balancing economic growth with social equity and environmental sustainability in “unequal cities”.
Rank-Size Rule and Primate City Concept
Warning📘 Syllabus Coverage
| Syllabus | Topic Details |
|---|---|
| UGC NET | Rank-Size rule, Primate city |
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NoteKey Concepts
- Rank-Size Rule (G.K. Zipf, 1949): The population of a city is approximately inversely proportional to its rank in the urban hierarchy (\(P_r = P_1 / r\)). Represents a balanced, integrated urban system.
- Note: It is based on observation and does not accurately predict the population of every city in a country without any deviation.
- E.g., The USA roughly follows this rule.
- Primate City (Mark Jefferson, 1939): The largest city is “supereminent” and disproportionately larger than the second largest city (often >2x). It dominates the country politically and economically.
- E.g., Paris, London, Mexico City, Bangkok.
- Often indicates centralization, colonial legacy, or an underdeveloped national settlement network.
Theoretical Frameworks
Settlement Hierarchy and Central Place Theory
Warning📘 Syllabus Coverage
| Syllabus | Topic Details |
|---|---|
| UGC NET | Christaller’s Central Place Theory, August Losch’s Market Centre Theory, Primate city, Rank-Size rule |
Get the Presentation ↗ | Watch the Video ↗
NoteKey Concepts
- Central Place Theory (Christaller, 1933): Explains the size, number, and distribution of human settlements.
- Concepts: Central place (provides goods/services), Threshold (minimum market needed to support a service), Range (maximum distance people will travel for a good).
- Geometry: Hexagonal hinterlands. Hierarchies based on K-values: K=3 (Marketing principle), K=4 (Transport principle), K=7 (Administrative principle).
- Lösch’s Modification: More flexible, allowing for specialized production centers rather than strict hierarchies.
- Rank-Size Rule (Zipf): In a national settlement system, the \(n^{th}\) largest city’s population is \(1/n\) of the largest city’s population (\(P_n = P_1/n\)). Indicates an integrated, balanced urban system.
- Primate City (Jefferson): A city disproportionately larger (> twice) than the second largest, dominating the country politically/economically (e.g., Paris, Bangkok, London). Indicates centralization/underdevelopment.
Quick Reference
Settlement Geography Quick Reference
Concepts and Models
| Theory / Concept | Propounder | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Central Place Theory | Walter Christaller | Hierarchical arrangement of settlements based on range and threshold. |
| Rank-Size Rule | G.K. Zipf | Relationship between city rank and population size. |
| Primate City | Mark Jefferson | Dominance of the largest city in a country. |
| Nearest Neighbour Analysis | Clark & Evans | Measure of spatial distribution (Rn value 0 to 2.15). |
| Hamleted Settlement | - | Small, dispersed clusters of houses. |
| Nucleated Settlement | - | Houses clustered around a central point (e.g., well, temple). |
Key Terms
- Threshold: Minimum population needed to support a service.
- Range: Maximum distance people are willing to travel for a service.
- Conurbation: Continuous urban area formed by merging towns (Patrick Geddes).
- Satellite Town: Smaller town near a large city, partly independent.
- Dormitory Town: Residential town where people commute to a nearby city for work.
Notes compiled by Geography Team