ISC CLASS 12

GEOGRAPHY

URBAN SETTLEMENT

Q. 1. Define urban areas according to the 2011 census

Ans. For the census of India 2011, the definition of urban area is as follows:

(a) All places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified to area committee, ele

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

(i) a minimum population of 5000

(II) at least 75 percent of male working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits; and

(iii) a density of population of at least 400 persons per sq. km.

Q.2 Define statutory towns and census towns.

. Ans. The statutory towns are all the places with a municipality, corporation; cantonment board or notified town area committee, etc. So declared by a state law. Census towns is that which satisfy the following criteria:

(D) a minimum population of 5,000

(i) at least 75 percent of male working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits; and

(ii) a density of population of at least 4100 persons per sq.km.

Q.3. What do you mean by out-growth (OGs) of cities and towns?

Ans. The outgrowths include a fairly large well organized railway colony, university. campus, port areas, military lamp etc, which might have come up around a core city or statutory towns

0.4. How does the census of India define urban agglomeration?

Ans. An urban agglomeration is a continuous urban spread and normally consists of a town together with its outgrowths or two or more physically contiguous towns together with contiguous well organized outgrowth, if any of such towns and its total population should not be less than 20.000 as per census. Examples; Greater Mumbai (UA). Delhi (UA) etc.

Q. 5. What type of conditions have been made essential for an area to be called an urban agglomeration in the 2011 census?

Ans. A town should be a statutory town and the population should not be less than 20,000. With these two basic criteria the following are the different conditions:

(i) a city or town with one or more contiguous outgrowth.

(i) two or more adjoining towns with or without their outgrowth.

(i) a city and one or more adjoining towns with their outgrowths all of which form a continuous spread.

0.6. What do you mean by the term "Break of transport" theory? How is it help in the growth of urban centres.

Ans. The "Break of Transport" Theory was put forward by C.H. Cooley in 1930. Break of transport means one mode of transportation terminates and the other mode of transportation starts. For example at the ports, the water transport terminates and rail and road transport starts.

This gives boost to business and commerce activities in a big way and accelerates growth of urban centres.

Q.7. Which process is called Transhipment?

Ans. if there is a break in the transport routes and one mode of transport gives way to the other. At such places goods have to be transferred from one vehicle to another. This process is called transhipment. It requires a lot of labour for transhipment especially when heavy goods are to be transferred from one vehicle to the other.

Q.8. What are slums?

Ans. Slums are the substandard structure of housing, overcrowding, lack of ventilation, zero or near zero sanitary facilities all conspiring to promote slum life which defines health and morals.

Q.9. What do you mean by squatter settlements?

Ans. Squatter settlements which are relatively temporary than slum and after scatter in all parts of the city, especially outer zones where urban areas merge with the rural hinterland, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai are estimated to have more than 6 million persons residing in squatter settlements alone.

Q. 10. What do you mean by urban sprawl? Why is it considered to be a problem of urbanization?

Ans. When any city grow in size, they encroach upon the surrounding areas and aerial expansion takes place. The areal expansion due to rapid growth of the cities inc urban sprawl. The main problems of urbanization due to urban sprawl are • Overcrowding: There is an immense amount of overcrowding during the day leading to traffic congestion.

Pollution: Due to this congestion there is a lot of air pollution leading to kind of hazards to the main urban settlement.

Q. 11. Define conurbation?

Ans. Due to urban sprawl towns keeps on growing continuously and in some areas the suburbs of a number of neighbouring towns may coalesce to form a continuous area known as conurbation. Big cities like Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai along their suburban towns are good examples of conurbation.

Q. 12. What do you mean by Metropolitan cities and Megacities or million plus cities?

Ans. The census of India has defined metropolitan as an urban agglomeration/city hung population of one million eg, Kanpur, Pune etc. and if above one million to million are called the mega cities or million plus cities, Mumbai, Kolkata, Deb Chennai are the megacities in India.

Q. 13. What is Metropolis?

Ans. A metropolis is a distinct form of settlement, characteristically with sprawling of built up area includes its interdependent nearby villages and even towns Delhi

Kolkata and Mumbai are the important metropolises of India.

Q. 14. Which city of south east Asia is referred to as "the venice of the east? Mention An important problem faced by this city.

Ans. Bangkok is known as the "Venice of the East", and the problem faced by it is the

shallow water at its docks which requires dredging to remove silt.

Q.15. Which state has the highest percentage of urban population and which state has the lowest percentage? Give one reason for each. [Acc. To 2011]

Ans. Maharashtra is the state which has the highest urban percentage (ie. 45.23%) while Himachal Pradesh has the lowest level of urban population percentage (ie, 10.04%)

according to the 2011 census. Main cause of the highest urban population percentage of Maharashtra is industrialization in the state. While the lowest population percentage of Himachal Pradesh is due to lack of industrialization and job opportunities, thus urban population is less

Q. 16. Discuss any eight factors that affects the location of urban settlements in India.

Ans. (a) Transportation: Accessibility of road, sail and water transport systems largely affects the growth of urban settlements,

(b) Mineral resources: Availability of mineral resources is also a factor that attracts more people towards it.

(c) Agricultural resources: About half of the small Indian towns are the grain market some of these products are used as industrial raw material and give birth to industrial town,

(d) Industrialization : Industrializations and Urbanizations go side by side. All industrial areas grow into large cities.

(e) Education: Many towns are known as educational centers although some other economic activities also commence along with education. Eg-Nalanda in India.

Political factors. Government policies also provide lots of help to grow an urban settlement.

(g) Defense: The areas that provide a proper defense systems for their people, supports its growth.

(h) Religion: Some cities are centers of religious activities, which has helped then to grow big. Eg-Baranashi and Allahabad are religious centers.

Q. 17. Explain with specific examples the main problem resulting from the growth of large cities in India.

Ans. India is one of the less urbanized countries of the world with only 27.78 per cent of her population living in urban agglomeration in 2001. However, our country is facing serious problems of urban growth at the present situation. Some of these problems are as given below

Unemployment: Big cities largely grow in high population due to migration of people from the surrounding rural areas. Such rural folks are generally unskilled. illiterate or as surplus labour forces of agriculture that do not find appropriate jobs and create the problem of unemployment in the cities. The unemployment problem is likely to become more and more difficult to cope in the future.

Growth of slums and squatter settlements: The growth of slums and squatter settlements is a sticking problem in metropolitan cities of India. There are no reliable estimates of the number of slums living in inner parts of cities and the squatter settlements merges in all parts of cities of outer zones. Slums and squatter settlements have grown in such an extent that any plan for towns or cities development merely be a great problem to find space for them. The shortage of space and the problem of clearing the slum is another reason for slow progress to improve the megacity conditions.

Urban sprawl: The rapid growth of cities is called "Urban sprawl" In almost all the cities are growing at faster rate over the surrounding agricultural land. Hence, there is less scope for agricultural expansion. The other burning problem is lack of Infrastructure facilities, like house, sanitation, water, electricity, health and education.

Traffic congestion: The Urban sprawling place brings up the problem of bottleneck traffic congestion when commuters flock together to the cities in the morning or in the evening. The traffic-flow is very slow and in most big cities the rush hour may last for two to three hours.