NCERT Class 12 Geography Part 1 Chapter 10: Human Settlements

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Human Settlements Temporary Permanent

A human settlement is defined as

A place inhabited more or less permanently

Classification of Settlements – Rural Urban

Based on Population

Based on Size

Based on Occupation – Primary, Secondary or Tertiary

Based on Function: Petrol Pump (urban in India) – rating of functions may vary

Sub Urbanisation: It is a new trend of people moving away from congested urban areas to cleaner areas outside the city in search of a better quality of living

Urban Settlement in India - Criteria

All places which have municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee and have a minimum population of 5000 persons, at least 75 per cent of male workers are engaged in non-agricultural pursuits and a density of population of at least 400 persons per square kilometers are urban.

Types & Patterns of Settlements

Compact or Nucleated – along river valley and fertile plains, share common occupations

Dispersed – spaced apart

Rural Settlements

agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing etc. The settlements size is relatively small.

Wet-Point Settlement – water is available for drinking, cooking and washing

Land – choose plain area with fertile soil

Upland – not prone to flooding - low lying river basins people chose to settle on terraces and levees which are “dry points”

Stilt houses in flood areas

Building material – wood stone - In loess areas of China, cave dwellings were important and African Savanna՚s building materials were mud bricks and the Eskimos, in polar regions, use ice blocks to construct igloos

Defence –

Planned Settlements – Constructed by Government - The scheme of villagisation in Ethiopia and the canal colonies in Indira Gandhi canal command area

Rural Settlement Patterns

On the basis of setting: The main types are plain villages, plateau villages, coastal villages, forest villages and desert villages.

On the basis of functions: There may be farming villages, fishermen՚s villages, lumberjack villages, pastoral villages etc.

On the basis of forms or shapes of the settlements: These may be a number of geometrical forms and shapes such as Linear (railway) , rectangular (wide inter montane valleys) , circular (lakes, tanks) , star like (roads converge) , T-shaped village (trijunction of road) , Y-Shaped (2 roads converge to one) , Cruciform (on cross road and extend in all 4 directions) , double village (both side of river) , cross-shaped village etc.

Rural Settlement Problems

Problems include

Poor infrastructure

Poor water supply

Water borne diseases

Absence of irrigation

Absence of sanitation

Disposal facilities

Unmetalled roads – cut off from cities

Emergency services

Urban Settlement

The first urban settlement to reach a population of one million was the city of London by around. A. D. 1810

By 1982 approximately 175 cities in the world had crossed the one million population mark.

Expected that 68 per cent of the world՚s population lives in urban settlements by 2050 compared to only 3 per cent in the year 1800

Classification of Urban Settlement

  • Site – The exact placement of a settlement on the Earth
  • Situation – Where a city is, in relation to its surrounding features
  • Population Size: 1,500 in Colombia, 2,000 in Argentina and Portugal, 2,500 in U. S. A. and Thailand, 5,000 in India and 30,000 in Japan.
  • Based on low density – population size is also considered as low. Denmark, Sweden and Finland, all places with Population size of 250 persons are called urban. The minimum population for a city is 300 in Iceland, whereas in Canada and Venezuela, it is 1,000 persons.
  • Density: 400 persons per sq km in India
  • Occupational Structure: Italy, a settlement is called urban, if more than 50 per cent of its economically productive population
  • is engaged in non-agricultural pursuits.India has set this criterion at 75 per cent.
  • Administration: India, a settlement of any size is classified as urban, if it has a municipality, Cantonment Board or Notified
  • Area Council. Similarly, in Latin American countries, such as Brazil and Bolivia, any administrative centre is considered urban irrespective of its population size.
  • Location: Holiday resort, strategic towns, mining, industrial, tourist
  • Functions: recreational, residential, transport, mining, manufacturing Sheffield as an industrial city, London as a port city,
  • Chandigarh as an administrative city - Many of the old market towns are now known for manufacturing activities
  • Administrative Towns: National capitals, which house the administrative offices of central governments, such as New Delhi, Canberra, Beijing, Addis Ababa, Washington D. C. , and London
  • Trading and Commercial Towns: Agricultural market towns, such as, Winnipeg and Kansas city; banking and financial centres like Frankfurt and Amsterdam; large inland centres like Manchester and St Louis; and transport nodes such as, Lahore, Baghdad and Agra have been important trading centres.
  • Cultural Towns: Places of pilgrimage, such as Jerusalem, Mecca, Jagannath Puri and Varanasi
  • Others: Health and recreation Miami and Panaji , industrial Pittsburgh and Jamshedpur , mining and quarrying Broken
  • Hill and Dhanbad and transport Singapore and Mughal Sarai .

Classification of Towns Based on Forms

Planned Cities: Chandigarh and Canberra

Ethiopia - Addis Ababa (The New Flower) : New City in 1878 – hill valley. The roads radiate from the govt headquarters Piazza, Arat and Amist Kilo roundabouts. Mercato has markets which grew with time and is supposed to be the largest market between Cairo and Johannesburg. Bole airport is a relatively new airport.

Canberra – Capital of Australia – in 1912 by W. B. Griffin – garden city with 5 main centers

Nearest Neighbour Analysis measures the spread or distribution of something over a geographical space. The NNI measures the spatial distribution from 0 (clustered pattern) to 1 (randomly dispersed pattern) to 2.15 (regularly dispersed ⟋uniform pattern)

Types of Urban Settlements

Towns – population is not only criteria (functional constrast – wholesale, retail, manufacturing)

City – leading town -city is in fact the physical form of the highest and most complex type of associative life. When the population crosses the one million mark it is designated as a million city

Conurbation - by Patrick Geddes in 1915 – merger of towns - Greater London, Manchester, Chicago and Tokyo

Megalopolis – by Jean Gottman – super metropolitan or union of conurbations - from Boston in the north to south of Washington in U. S. A

Million City – London reached the million mark in 1800, followed by Paris in 1850, New York in 1860, and by 1950 there were around 80 such cities

Mega City: Population of 10 million plus – New York was the first. China alone has 15 megacities, India has five, and Japan has three.

Problems of Human Settlements

Unsustainable concentration of population, congested housing and streets, lack of drinking water facilities

They also lack infrastructure such as, electricity, sewage disposal, health and education facilities

Urban Problems – vertical housing (shortage of land) , growth of slums, congestion, illegal settlements, squatter population

Economic Problems – unskilled labor force

Socio-Cultural Problems – education & health is beyond human reach; lack of employment and education aggravate crime rates. Male selective migration to the urban areas distorts the sex ratio in these cities

Environmental Problems – improper sewage, minimum water availability, domestic and industrial waste

Health City

World Health Organisation (WHO) suggests that, among other things, a ‘healthy city’ must have:

A Clean and՚safe environment.

Meets the ‘Basic Needs’ of ‘All’ its inhabitants.

Involves the ‘Community’ in local government.

Provides easily accessible ‘Health’ service

Urban Strategy – UNDP

Increasing ‘Shelter’ for the urban poor.

Provision of basic urban services such as ‘Education’ , ‘Primary Health care’ , ‘Clean Water and Sanitation’ .

Improving women՚s access to ‘Basic Services’ and government facilities.

Upgrading ‘Energy’ use and alternative ‘Transport’ systems.

Reducing ‘Air Pollution’ .

Manishika