What is meant by the term urbanisation?

Authors Avatar

A-Level Geography

What is meant by the term urbanisation? [5]

 (a) Urbanisation is an increase in the percentage of a population living in urban areas.  It is caused by migration to urban areas, higher birth rates in urban areas and higher death rates in rural areas due to famine decreased standard of living and poor water and hygiene. It can also be caused by incorporation of rural areas into urban areas.

Explain the changing distribution of the world’s largest cities in recent years [20]

(b) In the past fifty years there have been dramatic changes in the distribution of the world’s largest cities.  In 1960 only one third of the world’s population lived in urban areas, by 1999 this figure had reached almost one half of the world’s population.  In 1950 the world’s largest cities were in mainly developed countries.  In 2000 the distribution of the world’s ten largest cities has changed to be in mainly developing countries.  London, Moscow, Chicago and Paris are no longer in the top ten of the world’s largest cities.  Mexico city is now the largest city in the world, and it is over twice the size of the largest city in 1950.  All cities have continued to grow rapidly. In 1950 only New York was a ‘mega-city’ with more than 10 million inhabitants.  In 2000 all of the top ten largest cities are mega-cities and 7 of these are in developing countries.

Join now!

Rapid urban growth is caused by three factors: migration to cities from rural areas; natural population increase among city residents and reclassification of previously rural areas as urban, as they became built up.  All of these factors are more prominent in developing countries than developed countries, which is why changes in the largest cities locations, from the developed world to the developing world have occurred.         

In developing countries rural to urban migration occurs at a very high rate because of deteriorating conditions in rural areas.  Rapid population growth among low-income groups in rural areas has put a lot of ...

This is a preview of the whole essay