Urban settlements in India consist of Statutory towns, Census towns, Cities, Metropolitan cities, Urban agglomerations and Outgrowth.
Metropolitan Cities:
Cities with a population of at least 10 lakh (1 million).
Cities:
‘Urban areas’ with a population of atleast one lakh (0.1 million). Others are termed as Towns.
Census Town:
Places with a minimum population of 5,000 with atleast 75% of male working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits and a population density of atleast 400 people per sq km.
Statutary Towns:
All places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee as declared by the state law.
Urban Agglomeration
Continous urban spreads constituting one or more towns and its adjoining urban outgrowths. A UA must consists of at least one statutory town, and its total population of all constituents put together should not be less than 20,000 as enumerated in the Census of 2001.
Types of urban settlements in India:
The maps here represent the distribution of different types of urban settlements across states and union territories (UT), on the basis of
- Size class classification
- Type of governing body
Distribution of urban settlement sizes in states is not uniform across the country. For example the share of class I settlements was largest in Kerala (28%) whereas in West Bengal 52% of the settlements were class V towns.
In case of urban governance structure, 88% of the settlements in West Bengal were governed as Census Towns. On the other hand, Sikkim had the highest number of settlements governed as Municipal Corporations.