Urban settlement
Topic: Human Settlements and Urbanisation in India · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 2 "Human Settlements"
Meaning
An urban settlement is a town or city. Towns are fewer, larger and more compact than villages. Their people do secondary work (making goods) and tertiary work (giving services such as trade, banking and transport). A town is a node of growth, meaning a centre that drives the economy of the area around it. It sends goods and services to its rural hinterland (the area that depends on it). In return it gets food and raw materials, carried along transport links. Social ties are formal, and life is fast. Towns can also be very unequal inside, with rich and poor areas side by side.
Example
Kolkata in West Bengal supplies goods, jobs, banking and hospitals to a large hinterland in eastern India. It gets rice, vegetables and jute from the surrounding villages.
Don't confuse with
- Rural settlement: villages are small, spread out and depend on farming and other land-based work.