NCERT
Every NCERT book that matters for UPSC — open a book, then a chapter. Learn each chapter's concepts, then how UPSC tests them — with diagrams, flowcharts and the past questions to attempt.
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← India: People and Economy — all chaptersHuman Settlements
Start here: why this chapter matters
In simple wordsWhere you live — a hamlet of five houses, a village with one main street, a market town, a metro — shapes what work you do, how you travel, who your neighbours are and what services you get. This chapter sorts India's places into types and asks why each type is found where it is.
Chapter 1 counted India's people and found about 69 per cent in villages and 31 per cent in towns. This chapter looks at the places they live in: the kinds of villages, how towns arose over 4,500 years, how the Census decides what is ‘urban’, how fast India is urbanising, and what towns do.
- Builds on Chapter 1 (Population): rural–urban composition, village sizes and the corridors of rural–urban migration.
- Builds on India: Physical Environment: relief, drainage and climate explain why villages are compact on the plains, dispersed in the hills and compact around scarce water in Rajasthan.
- Links to Fundamentals of Human Geography Chapter 2 (migration and why cities pull people) and Chapters 5–6 (secondary and tertiary activities — the economic base of towns).
- Leads into Chapter 3 (Land Resources and Agriculture) — the economic base of villages — and the later chapters on industry and transport, which create functional towns.
- UPSC: GS1 lists ‘urbanization, their problems and their remedies’; GS2/GS3 ask about Smart Cities, urban local bodies and rural–urban integration. Prelims tests village patterns, megacities and million-plus cities.
| Word | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Settlement | A cluster of dwellings of any size where people live, with the land that supports them |
| Hamlet | A small group of houses, often part of a larger village with the same name |
| Hinterland | The surrounding area a town serves and draws food and raw materials from |
| Node | A central place where routes and exchanges meet — a city in its region |
| Clustered / dispersed | Houses built close together / scattered singly over the land |
| Urban agglomeration (UA) | A town with its continuous outgrowths, or adjoining towns, counted as one urban unit |
| Level of urbanisation | Urban population as a percentage of total population |
| Satellite town | A town near a big city that grows by taking some of its people and functions |
| Cantonment / garrison town | A town that grew around a permanent military station |
| Multi-functional city | A city whose many functions are so intertwined that it fits no single class |
Reading the chapter-opening photograph (page 15)
- A broad mountain valley: a river winds across a flat valley floor laid out in fields; a cluster of buildings sits on the flat land beside the river, and forested hills rise behind under low cloud.
- In the foreground are the roofs of houses on the slope — some of wooden shingles weighted down, one of metal sheet.
- It shows the chapter's theme in one frame: people build where there is flat land and water, leave the steep slopes mostly to forest, and use local materials for houses.
At a glance — the six ideas to carry away
- Settlement = cluster of dwellings + the territory that supports it; range: hamlet → metropolis.
- Rural = primary, small, scattered, intimate ties; urban = secondary + tertiary, compact, formal ties; cities are nodes serving hinterlands.
- Four rural types: clustered (plains, NE, Bundelkhand, Rajasthan), semi-clustered (Gujarat plain), hamleted (panna, para, palli, nagla, dhani), dispersed (Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, HP, Kerala).
- Census urban test: civic body, or 5,000+ people, 75%+ of male workers non-farm, 400+ per sq km.
- Towns: ancient (Varanasi), medieval (~100, fort towns), modern (colonial ports, presidency towns, Jamshedpur; post-1947 Chandigarh, Bhilai).
- Urbanisation 10.84% (1901) → 31.16% (2011); urban population ×11 in the 20th century; nine functional classes, but big cities are multi-functional.
1. What is a settlement? Rural versus urban
In simple wordsA village is like a family farm: it grows food and raw materials. A city is like a big workshop and market: it processes things and offers services — banks, hospitals, colleges, courts. Each needs the other, and roads and phones are the corridors between them.
A human settlement is a cluster of dwellings of any type or size where people live. People build houses and other structures and command some area as their economic support-base. So settling involves two things together: grouping people and apportioning territory as their resource base.
Settlements range from a hamlet to a metropolitan city. As size grows, the economic character, social structure, ecology and technology change. Small, sparsely spaced settlements are villages, specialising in agriculture or other primary work; fewer but larger settlements are urban, specialising in secondary and tertiary activities.
| Rural settlements | Urban settlements | |
|---|---|---|
| Economic base | Land-based primary activities | Processing and manufacturing, and a variety of services |
| Role | Supply food and raw materials | Nodes of economic growth; serve their own people and the villages of their hinterland |
| Size and spacing | Small, sparsely spaced, many | Large, compact, fewer |
| Social life | People less mobile; intimate social relations | Complex, fast way of life; formal relations |
| Link | — | Rural–urban exchange runs through the transport and communication network |
Beyond NCERT — central placesThe German geographer Walter Christaller (1933) explained this pattern in his central place theory: settlements offering higher-order services (a university, a specialist hospital) are fewer and farther apart, and each serves a larger hinterland than the many small places offering everyday goods. NCERT's ‘series of market towns and cities’ is this hierarchy in practice.
2. Types of rural settlements
In simple wordsLook down on villages from a plane. On the Ganga plain you see tight blobs of houses with fields around them. In the hills of the north-east or Uttarakhand you see single houses dotted on slopes. In between you see blobs broken into pieces. Those are the four types, and the land, water, society and safety decide which one you get.
The type of a rural settlement depends on the extent of the built-up area and the distance between houses. A compact village of a few hundred houses is almost universal in India, especially on the northern plains, but other forms exist. NCERT gives three groups of factors:
- Physical: nature of terrain, altitude, climate and availability of water.
- Cultural and ethnic: social structure, caste and religion.
- Security: defence against thefts and robberies.
| Type | Features (NCERT) | Where (NCERT) | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clustered (agglomerated, nucleated) | Compact, closely built-up; living area distinct from surrounding farms, barns and pastures; streets form a pattern — rectangular, radial, linear | Fertile alluvial plains; north-eastern States; Bundelkhand and Nagaland; Rajasthan | Fertile land; security/defence (Bundelkhand, Nagaland); scarce water used jointly (Rajasthan) |
| Semi-clustered (fragmented) | A cluster in a restricted part of a dispersed area, or a large village that has split; dominant land-owning community in the centre, lower strata and menial workers on the outer flanks | Gujarat plain; parts of Rajasthan | Social segregation, or clustering inside a dispersed area |
| Hamleted | Several physically separate units with one common name — panna, para, palli, nagla, dhani | Middle and lower Ganga plain, Chhattisgarh, lower Himalayan valleys | Mostly social and ethnic factors split a big village |
| Dispersed (isolated) | Isolated huts or hamlets of a few huts in remote jungles or on small hills, with farms or pasture on slopes | Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala | Extremely fragmented terrain and land base |
Reading NCERT Figure 2.1 — Clustered Settlements in the North-eastern States (page 16)
- A whole hillside covered with tightly packed roofs below a high, partly snowy ridge; lanes are barely visible between houses.
- What the photo adds: clustering is not only a plains feature. In the north-east, villages crowd onto a defensible slope or spur — the security factor NCERT mentions for Nagaland.
Reading NCERT Figure 2.2 — Semi-clustered Settlements (page 16)
- Groups of houses on a hill slope linked by a winding road, with clear open gaps between the groups.
- It shows the in-between case: neither one compact blob nor single scattered huts.
Reading NCERT Figure 2.3 — Dispersed Settlements in Nagaland (page 17)
- A steep, wooded hillside dotted with single small white houses far apart, and one larger building lower down.
- Note that the book shows Nagaland twice: compact villages for defence (text) and dispersed houses here — terrain and safety pull in opposite directions in the same State.
⤵ From factors to settlement type
Physical baseterrain · altitude · climate · water
Flat fertile plainclustered
Scarce water (Rajasthan)clustered round tanks and wells
Rugged, fragmented hills and forestdispersed (Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, HP)
Insecurity (Bundelkhand, Nagaland)compact, defensible villages
Society modifies the formcaste segregation → semi-clustered (Gujarat plain) · ethnic segments → hamleted (para, palli, nagla, dhani)
Exam traps
- Dispersed settlements are expected in the forests and hills of the north-east (exercise Q1-iii), not in arid Rajasthan — there, water scarcity forces compact villages.
- Kerala is listed among dispersed areas: houses spread along the coastal and midland belt, each on its own plot (Beyond NCERT: hence Kerala's ‘rural–urban continuum’).
- Hamleted ≠ dispersed: a hamleted village has one name and several clusters; dispersed means single huts.
- UPSC 1993: Mizoram villages are linear along ridges because ridge tops are easier to reach and travel along (the key's answer: accessibility).
3. Urban settlements and the Census definition
In simple wordsWhen is a big village a town? A cricket umpire needs a clear rule, and so does the Census. India's rule has two doors: either the place has a town council, or it is big enough, crowded enough and mostly non-farming.
Urban settlements are generally compact and larger than villages and carry out many non-agricultural, economic and administrative functions. They are linked to the villages around them and to each other, directly or through market towns.
Reading NCERT's Census definition box (page 17)
- The 1991 Census definition: places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee, and a minimum population of 5,000, at least 75 per cent of male workers in non-agricultural pursuits, and a density of at least 400 persons per sq km.
- Read carefully: the 75 per cent is of male workers — not of the whole population, and not of all workers.
‘And’ or ‘or’? NCERT's wording versus Census practiceThe box joins the civic body and the three numerical tests with ‘and’. In Census practice (1961 onwards, still used in 2011) a place is urban if it is a statutory town (any place with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee) or a census town that meets all three tests: 5,000+ people, 75%+ of male main workers in non-agricultural work, and 400+ persons per sq km (Beyond NCERT). Exercise Q1(ii) asks which is not part of the definition: ‘more than 75% of the population engaged in the primary sector’ — the reverse of the rule.
Beyond NCERT — Census 2011 urban numbers
- 7,935 towns: 4,041 statutory towns and 3,894 census towns (in 2001: 5,161 towns, 1,362 of them census towns). Much of the 2001–11 jump came from villages newly qualifying as census towns.
- 475 urban agglomerations; 53 million-plus UAs/cities (35 in 2001); three megacities above 1 crore — Greater Mumbai UA (18.4 million), Delhi UA (16.3 million) and Kolkata UA (14.1 million).
- Urban population 377 million; for the first time since Independence, the absolute increase in urban population (about 91 million) was larger than in rural population.
4. Evolution of towns in India
In simple wordsIndian cities are layered like an old house that every generation extends: a temple quarter from ancient times, a fort and bazaar from a medieval king, a railway colony and civil lines from the British, a new sector or industrial estate after 1947.
Towns existed in prehistoric India — Harappa and Mohenjodaro of the Indus valley civilisation. Towns rose and declined over the centuries until the Europeans arrived. NCERT groups Indian towns, by the period in which they evolved, into ancient, medieval and modern.
| Class | Origin (NCERT) | Examples (NCERT) |
|---|---|---|
| Ancient | Over 2,000 years of history; mostly religious and cultural centres | Varanasi, Prayag (Prayagraj), Pataliputra (Patna), Madurai |
| Medieval | About 100 existing towns; headquarters of principalities and kingdoms; fort towns built on the ruins of ancient towns | Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Agra, Nagpur |
| Modern (colonial) | Europeans first built coastal trading ports; the British then built three principal nodes in British style; added administrative centres, hill towns as summer resorts, and civil, administrative and military areas; industrial towns after 1850 | Surat, Daman, Goa, Pondicherry · Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata · Jamshedpur |
| After Independence | Administrative headquarters, industrial centres, satellite towns around metropolises, and many small and medium towns as investment reached rural areas | Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Dispur · Durgapur, Bhilai, Sindri, Barauni · Ghaziabad, Rohtak, Gurugram |
Reading NCERT Figure 2.4 — A View of the Modern City (page 17)
- A wide, divided road with a railing and planted verge, a car on the carriageway, and a row of white colonnaded buildings with shop signs.
- What it shows: the planned, regular look of a modern city centre — broad roads, uniform façades, commercial frontage — in contrast to the organic lanes of old towns.
⤵ How the colonial urban system was built (NCERT's sequence)
Coastal footholdstrading ports — Surat, Daman, Goa, Pondicherry
Three principal nodesBombay, Madras, Calcutta — built in the British style
Domination spreads inlandadministrative centres · hill towns as summer resorts · civil and military (cantonment) areas
Industrial towns after 1850e.g. Jamshedpur
After 1947new capitals, steel and fertiliser towns, satellite towns, small and medium towns
Beyond NCERT
- Chandigarh was designed by Le Corbusier (UPSC 1980); Bhubaneswar's plan is by Otto Königsberger.
- Jamshedpur grew round the Tata Iron and Steel works founded in 1907; Bhilai and Durgapur are public-sector steel towns of the 1950s–60s; Sindri a fertiliser town; Barauni a refinery town.
- Gurugram, Ghaziabad, Noida and others are part of the National Capital Region, planned partly to draw growth away from Delhi.
Exam traps
- NCERT says the Europeans arrived ‘in the eighteenth century’. The Portuguese reached India in 1498 and the Dutch, English and French set up trading posts in the 1600s; the eighteenth century is when the British began to dominate (Beyond NCERT). Surat, Daman, Goa and Pondicherry were all European posts long before 1700.
- Delhi, Agra and Hyderabad are medieval in NCERT's scheme, though Delhi has much older roots; Varanasi is the model ancient town.
- Jamshedpur = modern (industrial, after 1850), not post-Independence.
5. Urbanisation in India
In simple wordsImagine a class where each year a few more students move from the back benches (villages) to the front (towns). The share at the front is the level of urbanisation; how fast the front rows fill is the growth rate. The front can fill more slowly in some years and still be getting fuller.
The level of urbanisation is the percentage of urban population in the total. India's level in 2011 was 31.16 per cent — low compared with developed countries. Urban population grew eleven-fold in the twentieth century, through the enlargement of existing towns and the emergence of new ones. But the growth rate of urban population has slowed in the last two decades.
Reading NCERT Table 2.1 — India: Trends of Urbanisation 1901–2011 (page 18)
- Five columns: year, number of towns/UAs, urban population (thousands), percentage of total population, decennial growth.
- 1901: 1,827 towns, 2.59 crore urban people, 10.84%. 2011: 6,171 towns/UAs, about 37.7 crore, 31.16%.
- The share actually fell in 1911 (10.29%) — the only decline — and urban population barely grew in 1901–11 (0.35%).
- Fastest growth: 1941–51 (41.42%), which includes Partition refugees settling in towns (Beyond NCERT), and the peak 1971–81 (46.14%).
- The number of towns drops from 2,843 (1951) to 2,365 (1961) while urban population still rises — because the 1961 Census adopted the stricter definition above and declassified many small towns (Beyond NCERT).
- What the table shows that the text does not: the share rose fastest in 2001–11 (+3.38 points, against +2.07 in 1991–2001) even though the growth rate slowed.
Check the 2011 row
- The table's own figures — 2,85,355 thousand (2001) and 3,77,000 thousand (2011) — give a decennial growth of 32.1%, not the printed 31.08%. The Census-reported urban growth for 2001–11 was about 31.8% (Beyond NCERT); the printed figure is a provisional-stage number.
- The 2011 count of 6,171 towns/UAs differs from the Census total of 7,935 towns (Beyond NCERT) because it counts each urban agglomeration as one unit; do not compare it directly with 2001's 5,161 towns.
- ‘Eleven-fold in the twentieth century’ is 1901 → 2001 (25.85 → 285.36 million); 1901 → 2011 is about fifteen-fold.
⤵ Where urban growth comes from
Natural increase in townsbirths minus deaths of people already urban
Rural–urban migrationpush from farm distress, pull of jobs (Chapter 1's corridors)
New and enlarged townsvillages reclassified as census towns · boundaries extended · new industrial and administrative towns
Resulturban share 10.84% (1901) → 31.16% (2011); urban growth rate slowing since 1971–81
Beyond NCERT — exam links
- UPSC 1993 called rapidly growing urban population in the Third World the ‘new population bomb’; UPSC 2010 asked which region urbanised fastest (Asia, per UN-Habitat's 2009 report).
- Most urbanised State has changed over time: Maharashtra led the large States around 1981 (UPSC 1982); in 2011 Goa (62.17%) leads, Tamil Nadu (48.45%) is first among large States (Chapter 1's Appendix iii).
- Mains themes: social problems of rapid urbanisation (2013), segregation and marginalisation of the poor in metropolises (2023), Tier-2 cities and the new middle class (2022), IT hubs creating jobs and new problems (2017, 2021).
6. Functional classification of towns
In simple wordsPeople are known for their main job — doctor, teacher, soldier — even though they also cook, shop and vote. Towns are the same: Jharia is ‘the coal town’ and Mhow ‘the army town’, though both also have markets and schools. As a town grows into a big city, no single job describes it any more.
Besides being central or nodal places, many towns perform specialised services and are known for particular activities, products or services. Every town has several functions; NCERT classes them by their dominant function:
| Class | What drives it | NCERT examples |
|---|---|---|
| Administrative | Headquarters of higher-order government | Chandigarh, New Delhi, Bhopal, Shillong, Guwahati, Imphal, Srinagar, Gandhinagar, Jaipur, Chennai |
| Industrial | Industry is the prime motive force | Mumbai, Salem, Coimbatore, Modinagar, Jamshedpur, Hugli, Bhilai |
| Transport | Ports (export–import) or hubs of inland transport | Ports: Kandla, Cochin, Kozhikode, Visakhapatnam · hubs: Agra, Dhulia, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Nagar, Itarsi, Katni |
| Commercial | Trade and commerce | Kolkata, Saharanpur, Satna |
| Mining | Mineral-rich areas | Raniganj, Jharia, Digboi, Ankaleshwar, Singrauli |
| Garrison / cantonment | Military stations | Ambala, Jalandhar, Mhow, Babina, Udhampur |
| Educational | Grew from centres of learning into campus towns | Roorkee, Varanasi, Aligarh, Pilani, Prayagraj |
| Religious and cultural | Religious or cultural significance | Varanasi, Mathura, Amritsar, Madurai, Puri, Ajmer, Pushkar, Tirupati, Kurukshetra, Haridwar, Ujjain |
| Tourist | Tourist destinations | Nainital, Mussoorie, Shimla, Pachmarhi, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udagamandalam (Ooty), Mount Abu |
Beyond NCERT — what the examples are known for
- Mining: Raniganj and Jharia — coal (Damodar valley); Digboi (Assam) — oil, with one of Asia's oldest refineries (1901); Ankaleshwar (Gujarat) — oil; Singrauli — coal and thermal power.
- Transport: Kandla is now Deendayal Port; Mughalsarai junction became Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Nagar (2018); Dhulia is Dhule; Itarsi and Katni are big railway junctions.
- Education: Roorkee (IIT Roorkee, which began as the Thomason College of Civil Engineering in 1847), Aligarh (AMU), Pilani (BITS), Varanasi (BHU).
- Garrison: Mhow (now Dr. Ambedkar Nagar), Babina near Jhansi, Udhampur — HQ of the Army's Northern Command.
Functions are not static. Even specialised cities, as they grow into metropolises, become multi-functional: industry, business, administration and transport all become important, and the functions are so intertwined that the city cannot be put in any single class.
⤵ How a one-function town becomes multi-functional
Specialised starta mine, a port, a steel plant, a cantonment, a shrine, a university
Workers and families arriveneed housing, shops, schools, hospitals, transport
Services and trade multiplybanks, markets, offices; the town becomes a district or regional centre
Metropolisindustry + business + administration + transport intertwined — no single class fits (Mumbai: port, industry, finance, films, state capital)
Exam traps
- Bhopal is the town NOT on a river bank in exercise Q1(i): Agra (Yamuna), Patna (Ganga) and Kolkata (Hugli) are riverside; Bhopal is the ‘city of lakes’ (Beyond NCERT).
- The same town can appear in two classes: Varanasi is educational and religious; Mumbai industrial; Chennai administrative — NCERT's own point that classes overlap.
- Kolkata is NCERT's commercial example; Hugli its industrial one.
7. Smart Cities Mission and the urban challenge
In simple wordsRather than rebuild a whole city at once, fix one neighbourhood properly — water that always runs, safe streets, drains that do not flood, buses that come on time — and let other neighbourhoods and cities copy it. That ‘lighthouse’ idea is the Smart Cities Mission.
Reading NCERT's box ‘Smart Cities Mission’ (page 19)
- Objective: cities with core infrastructure, a clean and sustainable environment and a decent quality of life.
- Feature: smart solutions applied to infrastructure and services — e.g. making areas less vulnerable to disasters, using fewer resources, providing cheaper services.
- Focus: sustainable and inclusive development; work on compact areas and create a replicable model that acts as a lighthouse to other aspiring cities.
Beyond NCERT — the mission and its companions
- The Smart Cities Mission was launched in June 2015; 100 cities were chosen through a competition in rounds from 2016; its deadline was extended to March 2025. Most money went into area-based development (retrofitting or redeveloping a part of the city) plus pan-city smart solutions such as integrated command-and-control centres.
- Launched alongside: AMRUT (water supply, sewerage and urban transport in 500 cities; AMRUT 2.0 from 2021) and PMAY-Urban (housing).
- The rural counterpart idea: PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas, associated with A.P.J. Abdul Kalam) and the Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission (2016), which develops clusters of villages — UPSC Mains asked about ‘smart villages’ in 2015 and 2016.
| Urban problem (Beyond NCERT) | Typical remedies asked in Mains |
|---|---|
| Slums and segregation of the poor (Mains 2023) | Affordable rental housing, in-situ slum upgrading, inclusive zoning |
| Congestion and pollution | Public transport, transit-oriented development, cleaner fuels |
| Urban floods (see India: Physical Environment Ch. 6) | Protecting lakes and drains, permeable surfaces, early warning |
| Weak urban local bodies | Funds, functions and functionaries devolved under the 74th Amendment |
| Pull on a few metros | Develop Tier-2 and small towns, rural–urban integration (Rurban, PURA) |
Exam trapThe Smart Cities Mission works on compact areas within a city as replicable models — it does not aim to build 100 entirely new cities. Mains (2016, 2025) asked about its strategy and whether it serves the urban poor: the usual critique is that area-based projects cover a small part of each city.
NCERT exercise and in-text question — answer outlines
Try each question yourself first, then open the outline to compare. The three multiple-choice questions are in the self-check below.
In-text (page 19): List the urban agglomerations/cities State-wise and see the State-wise population under this category of cities.
Use the Census 2011 table of million-plus UAs/cities (53 in all, Beyond NCERT). States with the most: Uttar Pradesh (Kanpur, Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Agra, Varanasi, Meerut, Allahabad) and Kerala (seven each), then Maharashtra (Greater Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, Aurangabad, Vasai-Virar); the three megacities are Greater Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. Note which States have none and link the result to their level of urbanisation in Chapter 1.
What are garrison towns? What is their function? (30 words)
Towns that grew around permanent military stations (cantonments) — Ambala, Jalandhar, Mhow, Babina, Udhampur. Their main function is defence: housing, training and supplying troops, often near borders or strategic routes; civilian markets and services grow around them.
What are the main factors for the location of villages in desert regions? (30 words)
Water above all — villages sit beside wells, tanks, oases or along canals; they are compact to share scarce water (NCERT, Rajasthan). Also stable, higher ground away from shifting dunes, grazing land, routes, and defence.
Discuss the features of different types of rural settlements. What are the factors responsible for the settlement patterns in different physical environments? (150 words)
Define: type depends on built-up extent and inter-house distance.
Clustered: compact, living area separate from fields, rectangular/radial/linear streets — alluvial plains, NE, Bundelkhand, Nagaland, Rajasthan.
Semi-clustered: dominant core with lower strata on the flanks — Gujarat plain, parts of Rajasthan.
Hamleted: separate units, one name (panna, para, palli, nagla, dhani) — middle-lower Ganga plain, Chhattisgarh, lower Himalayan valleys.
Dispersed: isolated huts — Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, HP, Kerala.
Factors by environment: fertile plains and assured water → clustered; scarce water in deserts → compact around sources; rugged, fragmented hills and forests → dispersed; insecurity → compact defensive villages; caste and ethnic structure → semi-clustered and hamleted.
Diagram: the four plan-view sketches.
Clustered: compact, living area separate from fields, rectangular/radial/linear streets — alluvial plains, NE, Bundelkhand, Nagaland, Rajasthan.
Semi-clustered: dominant core with lower strata on the flanks — Gujarat plain, parts of Rajasthan.
Hamleted: separate units, one name (panna, para, palli, nagla, dhani) — middle-lower Ganga plain, Chhattisgarh, lower Himalayan valleys.
Dispersed: isolated huts — Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, HP, Kerala.
Factors by environment: fertile plains and assured water → clustered; scarce water in deserts → compact around sources; rugged, fragmented hills and forests → dispersed; insecurity → compact defensive villages; caste and ethnic structure → semi-clustered and hamleted.
Diagram: the four plan-view sketches.
Can one imagine the presence of only one-function town? Why do the cities become multi-functional? (150 words)
Yes, at first: many towns begin with one dominant function — mining (Jharia, Digboi), garrison (Mhow), transport junction (Itarsi), pilgrimage (Puri), campus (Pilani), tourist (Nainital).
But not for long: every town has several functions; workers need housing, markets, schools, hospitals, transport and administration.
Why cities become multi-functional: growth of population and demand; agglomeration economies attract new industries and services; better transport makes them regional nodes; they become administrative headquarters; specialisation draws allied trades (Mumbai: port → textiles → finance → films).
Conclude: NCERT — functions are dynamic; in metropolises industry, business, administration and transport are so intertwined that no single class fits.
Diagram: the functional wheel.
But not for long: every town has several functions; workers need housing, markets, schools, hospitals, transport and administration.
Why cities become multi-functional: growth of population and demand; agglomeration economies attract new industries and services; better transport makes them regional nodes; they become administrative headquarters; specialisation draws allied trades (Mumbai: port → textiles → finance → films).
Conclude: NCERT — functions are dynamic; in metropolises industry, business, administration and transport are so intertwined that no single class fits.
Diagram: the functional wheel.
What to remember
Numbers
Census urban tests5,000+ people · 75%+ of male workers non-agricultural · 400+ per sq km
Level of urbanisation, 201131.16%
Level of urbanisation, 190110.84% (fell to 10.29% in 1911)
Urban population, 1901 → 200125.85 → 285.36 million (eleven-fold)
Urban population, 2011about 377 million
Peak decennial urban growth46.14% (1971–81)
Towns/UAs: 1901 → 2001 → 2011 (Table 2.1)1,827 → 5,161 → 6,171
Drop in towns, 1951 → 19612,843 → 2,365
Ancient towns' historyover 2,000 years
Medieval-origin townsabout 100
Industrial towns fromafter 1850 (Jamshedpur)
Census 2011 towns (Beyond NCERT)7,935 = 4,041 statutory + 3,894 census towns
Million-plus UAs/cities, 2011 (Beyond NCERT)53 (35 in 2001)
Megacities, 2011 (Beyond NCERT)3 — Greater Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata
Smart Cities Mission (Beyond NCERT)launched June 2015, 100 cities
One-liners
- Settlement = grouping of people + apportioning of territory.
- Villages: primary, small, scattered; towns: secondary and tertiary, compact, nodes.
- Plains → clustered; Gujarat plain → semi-clustered; Ganga plain–Chhattisgarh → hamleted; hills → dispersed.
- Rajasthan is compact because water is scarce; Bundelkhand and Nagaland for security.
- Ancient = religious-cultural; medieval = fort towns; modern = colonial ports, presidency towns, hill stations, cantonments, industrial towns.
- Urban share rose fastest in 2001–11 even though urban growth rate slowed.
- Every big city ends up multi-functional.
Traps to avoid
- The Census urban rule is civic body OR all three tests — not all four together.
- 75% refers to male workers, not population.
- Dispersed settlements → north-eastern hills and forests, not the Rajasthan desert.
- Hamlet names: panna, para, palli, nagla, dhani — hamleted, not dispersed.
- Bhopal is not on a river bank.
- Level of urbanisation (%) ≠ growth rate of urban population.
- Table 2.1's 2011 growth (31.08%) does not match its own numbers (32.1%).
- Europeans arrived long before the 18th century; that is when the British came to dominate.
How to strategise
Prelims — what UPSC asks
- Rural settlement patterns: why Mizoram villages are linear along ridges (1993) — learn each type with its region and reason.
- Cities by size: megacities' features (2000), million-plus cities (2008), descending order of subcontinent metros (1993) — learn the 2011 list of megacities and the count of million-plus cities.
- Urbanisation: most urbanised State (1982), the ‘new population bomb’ (1993), fastest-urbanising region (2010). Know Table 2.1's milestones and Chapter 1's State urban shares.
- Planned towns: who designed Chandigarh (1980). Expect current-affairs questions on Smart Cities, AMRUT and Rurban.
Mains — where it appears and how to answer
- GS1: social problems of speedy urbanisation (2013); smart cities and smart villages (2015); quality of urban life and the Smart City programme (2016); IT hubs creating jobs and problems (2017, 2021); Tier-2 cities and the new middle class (2022); segregation and marginalisation of the poor in metropolises (2023); smart cities, urban poverty and distributive justice (2025).
- GS3: smart cities, rural–urban differences, PURA and Rurban (2016).
- Answer frame: define (Census urban definition, level of urbanisation) → trend with numbers (Table 2.1, Census 2011 counts) → causes (migration, new towns, reclassification, natural increase) → problems (slums, segregation, floods, congestion, weak ULBs) → schemes (Smart Cities, AMRUT, PMAY-U, Rurban) → way forward (small and medium towns, rural–urban continuum).
- Use diagrams: the urbanisation curve, the four village types, and the city-as-node sketch.
Self-check
Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.
1. Which one of the following towns is NOT located on a river bank?
2. Which one of the following is NOT part of the definition of a town as per the Census of India?
3. In which one of the following environments does one expect the presence of dispersed rural settlements?
4. ‘Panna, para, palli, nagla, dhani’ are local names for units of which type of rural settlement?
5. Compact villages in Rajasthan are mainly explained by:
6. Which pair is NOT correctly matched (town : NCERT's functional class)?
7. India's urban population increased about how many times during the twentieth century?
UPSC questions from this chapter
Open any question to attempt it in the Question bank — your attempt is saved to your progress.