ABSTRACT
Historic, economic, and political factors have caused the development of Kerala’s settlement system in a dispersed but interconnected way, creating a unique rural–urban continuum (RUC) type of settlement pattern. There is no specific boundary for the end of an urban settlement or the start of a rural settlement in the state. In this event of undistinguishable settlement characteristics, the functions and responsibilities related to governance identified and listed in the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Actscould not be properly performed. This dispersed settlement pattern has led to several issues concerning planning and management and it has become inevitable to assess such a settlement pattern in terms of its characteristics. Accordingly, census data with ArcGIS software have beenused to analyze settlementsfor their functional character, hierarchy, and population density variation for a better understanding of the pattern. The results show that the chances of the generation of urban-rural interphase (URI) spaces are very high in Kerala. A new settlement typology other than the conventional dichotomy of urban and ruralis proposed for their classification. These new settlement boundaries rather than imaginary political boundarieswill be used for spatial plan preparations.
