ABSTRACT
Human Settlements and Mapping Urban Landscapes .................................. 170 8.3.1 Structure of the FAO-UNEP LCCS Developed
by the Africover Project.................................................................... 170 8.3.2 Definition of the Built-Up Urban Area Land Cover Class
in the FAO-UNEP LCCS.................................................................. 172 8.3.3 The Africover Method of Land Cover Interpretation ....................... 173
8.4 Comparison of Urban Area Extents from Poverty Mapping Urban Rural Database and Africover ................................................................................ 174
8.5 Use of Africover Grids to Detect Land Cover Change in and around Human Settlements: Some Examples from Eastern and Northern Africa ............................................................................................ 178 8.5.1 Nile Delta .......................................................................................... 178 8.5.2. City of El Mahala El Kobra, Egypt .................................................. 182 8.5.3. Capital Cities of Eastern and Northern Africa ................................. 184
8.6 Concluding Remarks .................................................................................... 186 References .............................................................................................................. 187
According to the United Nations Population Division, because of national differences in the characteristics that distinguish urban from rural areas, there is no internationally agreed consensus on how the dividing lines between urban, suburban, and rural settlements should be demarcated (UN, 1998). Sometimes the administrative boundaries of human settlements such as cities, towns, and villages are available and are used to distinguish urban from rural — the populations within these administrative units being classified as urban, and the populations outside of them being classified as rural. Sometimes qualitative terminology with no precise meaning is used, for example, “urban centers,” “major cities,” “administrative centers,” or “municipalities.” Local inhabitants know the settlements to which these terms refer, but they are not otherwise defined.
