Human Settlements

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Geography Class XII (India: People and Economy), Chapter 2.

Why do some villages huddle and others scatter?

In the Rajasthan desert, houses crowd together around scarce water. On the hills of Meghalaya and Himachal Pradesh, a few huts sit alone on a slope with fields around them. In the Ganga plain, a big village may break into several small clusters bearing one name. The same people, the same country, but different shapes. A settlement's shape is a response to land, water, society and safety. This chapter teaches you to read that shape, and then follows the other half of the story: how towns arose, grew and took on special jobs.

The big idea: settlement is people plus territory

A human settlement is a cluster of dwellings of any type or size where people live. They put up houses and other structures, and claim an area as their economic support base. So settlement always involves two things: grouping of people and dividing up of territory as their resource base. Settlements range from a hamlet to a metropolitan city. With size, the economic character, social structure, ecology and technology change too.

Small, sparsely spaced settlements are villages, specialising in agriculture or other primary activities. Fewer but larger settlements are urban settlements, specialising in secondary and tertiary activities.

Rural settlements: four patterns

The type of a rural settlement is decided by the extent of the built-up area and the inter-house distance. In India a compact village of a few hundred houses is a rather universal feature, particularly in the northern plains, but several other forms exist. Three groups of factors explain the variety.

The four types are compared below. The table is the most useful single tool in the chapter.

Pause and predict: a village in a water-scarce region of Rajasthan is compact, while a village on a Meghalaya hill is dispersed. What single idea explains both?

Check your answer: settlement shape follows the resource that is most limited. Where water is scarce, people cluster to share it. Where habitable land is scattered in small pockets by rugged terrain, people spread out to live near their own fields.

Two views. For the exam: rural society is described as having intimate relations while urban life is complex and formal. Another reading: sociologists often describe village and city as two ends of a rural-urban continuum, with villages near cities adopting urban ways and many towns keeping close community ties. Why it matters: the textbook contrast is a good exam answer, but it works best as a tendency, not a rule for every settlement.

Urban settlements and the census definition

Urban settlements are generally compact and larger than rural ones. They have a variety of non-agricultural economic and administrative functions. Cities are linked to the surrounding rural areas, so goods and services move sometimes directly and sometimes through a chain of market towns and cities. Cities are thus connected directly and indirectly with villages and with each other.

The Census of India (1991) defines urban settlements as all places that meet all of the conditions below.

Pause and predict: a settlement has 6,000 people, 90 per cent of its male workers are in non-farm jobs, a density of 300 persons per sq km and a municipality. Is it urban by this definition?

Check your answer: no. The density is below 400 persons per sq km, so it fails one of the conditions. All four must be met together.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: use the four-part definition above. In reality: the Census 2011 divides towns into statutory towns, which have a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee, and census towns, which meet the size, occupation and density conditions (5,000 people, 75 per cent of male main workers in non-farm work, 400 persons per sq km) without such a body. Why it matters: it explains why the number of towns can rise sharply between Censuses even when no new municipality is set up.

How Indian towns evolved

Towns have existed in India since prehistoric times. Even in the Indus valley civilisation there were towns such as Harappa and Mohenjodaro. After that came periods of ups and downs until the arrival of Europeans. Indian towns are classified by their period of evolution.

Urbanisation in India

The level of urbanisation is the percentage of urban population in the total population. In 2011 it was 31.16 per cent, quite low compared with developed countries. The textbook notes that the urban population increased eleven-fold during the twentieth century, helped by the enlargement of urban centres and the emergence of new towns.

Worked example: checking "eleven-fold". Urban population was 25,851.9 thousand in 1901 and 2,85,355 thousand in 2001.

The common wrong step is to compute a percentage and call it an eleven per cent rise. A ratio of about 11 means the urban population became eleven times as large, an increase of about 1,000 per cent, not an eleven per cent rise.

Reading the table gives several useful points. The number of towns fell between 1951 and 1961 (from 2,843 to 2,365). The highest decennial growth of urban population was in 1981 (46.14 per cent). The urban share has risen from 10.84 per cent to 31.16 per cent. In the last two decades the growth rate of urbanisation has slowed down.

Functional classification of towns

Apart from being central or nodal places, many towns specialise in services. Towns are classified by their dominant or specialised function, though every town performs many functions.

Notice that Varanasi appears in educational and religious classes, and in the list of ancient towns. A city does not belong to only one box.

Why cities become multi-functional. Cities are not static. As specialised cities grow into metropolises, industry, business, administration and transport all become important. Functions become so intertwined that the city cannot be placed in a single class. So you cannot imagine a one-function town for long: growth brings other jobs, and each new job attracts more people and services.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: put a city in the class the textbook lists it under, for example Mumbai as industrial and Kolkata as commercial. In reality: big cities are multi-functional. Mumbai, for example, is also widely regarded as India's financial and commercial centre, and Kolkata also has major administrative, educational and industrial functions. Why it matters: a match-the-column question will use the textbook's labels, but a long answer on multi-functional cities should show that the labels describe the dominant function, not the only one.

Smart Cities Mission

The Smart Cities Mission aims to promote cities that provide core infrastructure, a clean and sustainable environment and a decent quality of life. A key feature is applying smart solutions to infrastructure and services to make them better. Examples are making areas less vulnerable to disasters, using fewer resources and providing cheaper services. The focus is on sustainable and inclusive development, on compact areas and on a replicable model that acts like a lighthouse for other aspiring cities.

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Previous: Population: Distribution, Density, Growth and Composition gives the rural-urban shares and density that this chapter explains in terms of settlement.
• Next: Land Resources and Agriculture turns to the land use around rural settlements.
• Also read: Tertiary and Quaternary Activities describes the trading centres and service functions of towns, and Planning and Sustainable Development in Indian Context covers regional planning.