Define the concept of ‘Urban’. How are the urban areas in India demarcated officially? Discuss.

Concept of Urban: Before the 19th century, the word ‘urban’ was rarely used in English language. It is defined as “pertaining to city or town life’ The Latin word ‘urbs makes the word urban which is diametrically opposite to rural.

This difference is due to the fact that the delineation of urban or rural areas is dependent on political, historical, cultural, demographic and administrative criteria.

Definitions

The definition of urban area or city provides us a better understanding of the process of urbanization. This definition varies from country to country and between one census and another in the same country. For instance, at least a population of 40,000 should be there to qualify as an urban area in South Korea while in Greenland even 300 inhabitants are sufficient for a place to qualify as an urban area.

This difference is due to the fact that the delineation of urban or rural areas is dependent on political, historical, cultural, demographic and administrative criteria.

DEFINING “URBAN” IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT

The census definition of town in India was more or less the same during 1901-1951. This definition was formalized with the help of certain statistical criteria in 1961. Bose (1974) mentions Census Superintendents have been given discretion for classifying the borderline cases of rural and urban.

The Census of 1901 included every municipality in the list of towns. Moreover, all civil lines which were not included in municipal limits and every continuous collection of houses which were permanently inhabited by not less than 5,000 persons were called towns by this Census. However, the definition of town was not totally objective since the Census Superintendent exercised his discretion. In 1961, Census defined towns and included all places with municipality, notified town area committee, cantonment board, corporation etc.

Its definition also included all other places which may have a population of 5,000 or 75% male working population engaged in non-agricultural work or a density of at least 400 persons per sq. km. in 1981 and 1991 Census occupations related to fishing, hunting, forestry, plantations, livestock etc. were treated as agricultural. Earlier these were called non-agricultural activities. The Census of 2001 has followed the same definition of 1991.

SOME CATEGORIES OF TOWNS ACCORDING TO THE INDIAN CENSUS

(a) An urban area having a population of 100,000 or more is called a city.

(b) Census towns must satisfy the three criteria mentioned above (i.e. a minimum of 5,000 persons or 75% males engaged in non-agricultural activities or density of 400 persons per sq. km.)

(c) Urban Agglomeration (UA) and Outgrowth (OG).

Urban agglomerations are a continuous urban spread consisting of a town and its adjoining urban outgrowths or there may be contiguous towns with continuous urban outgrowths. Areas like university campuses, military campuses, port towns and railway colonies which come up around a city do not qualify to be treated as towns and are treated as urban appendages and are termed as outgrowths.

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