Urban Settlements

According to the census of India urban areas are those which satisfy the conditions given below.

(a) All places with a municipality corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee, etc.

(b) All other places which satisfy the following criteria:

1. a minimum population of 5000
2. at least 75 percent of male working population engaged in non-agricultural sector
3. a density of population of at least 4,000 persons per square kilometer

Besides, the direction of census operation in states and Union Territories were allowed to include in consultation with the state governments and Union Territory administration and the census commissioner of India, some places having distinct urban characteristics as urban even if such places did not strictly satisfy all the criteria mentioned under category (b).

Such cases include major project colonies, railway colonies, areas of intensive industrial development, important tourist centres, etc.

Therefore, there are two broad groups of town or urban settlement. The places which satisfy the conditions mentioned in category (a) are known as statutory town and the conditions mentioned in category (b) are known as census towns.

1. Urban agglomeration may consist of any one of the three combinations:
2. a town and its adjoining urban outgrowth
3. two or more contiguous towns with or without their outgrowths
4. a city and one or more adjoining towns with their outgrowths together forming contiguous stretch

Examples of urban outgrowths are university campus, cantonment area, port area-seaport and air port, railway colonies, etc.

But, these towns are not always permanent. In each census, towns are subjected to de-classification and re-classification based on the prevailing condition at that particular time.