ABSTRACT
Urbanization is a term which is frequently used in urban history, yet it is seldom defined. More often than not, its meaning has to be deduced from the context since it concerns an important basic concept in urban history, to which many theories have been attached; it initially seemed to author of use to assemble the definitions as applied in the urban historiography. Since the appearance of the first major studies about urbanisation in the second half of the nineteenth century, of which the most important, as well as the most influential study is that of Adna F. Weber (1899), the term urbanization has primarily been associated with numbers of people. There are two classes of definition which are deemed unacceptable. The first regards urbanization as a process of radiation whereby ideas and practices spread out from the urban center into surrounding areas. The second class of definition is more objectionable than the first, and more peculiar.
