ABSTRACT

This chapter describes some of the findings of analyses of data from the 1991 Census. It analyses the spatial variation of urbanisation in India, to some extent to contrast urban and rural variables, and examines in more detail the characteristics of the large cities and provides exploratory and descriptive in nature. Thus India’s level of urbanisation is quite low compared with many developing countries, and the level has hardly gone up at all in the decade 1981-1991. However, there are wide regional variations in the level of urbanisation and the growth rate of urban populations, as well as in the development of regional urban conglomerations – as distinct from conurbations. The spatial pattern of urbanisation has given credence to the correlations too: the more generative cities occur in clusters in the North West, west and south of India, the more parasitic ones in the East, particularly in Bihar.