NCERT Solutions for Class 12 Geography Ch 4 Human Settlements
Short Answer Type Questions
- Ancient towns
- Medieval towns and
- Modern towns.
Ancient Towns: There are number of towns in India having historical background spanning over 2000 years. Most of them developed as religious and cultural centres. Varanasi is one of the important towns among these. Prayag (Allahabad), Pataliputra (Patna), Madurai are some other examples of ancient towns in the country.
Medieval Towns: About 100 of the existing towns have their roots in the medieval period and they developed as headquarters of principalities and kingdoms. These are fort towns which came up on the ruins of ancient towns. Important among them are Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Agra and Nagpur.
Modern Towns: The British and other Europeans have developed a number of towns in India. Starting their foothold on coastal locations, they first developed some trading ports such as Surat, Daman, Goa, Pondicherry, etc. Later they developed principle nodes of Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai (Madras), and Kolkata (Calcutta). They established administrative centres, hilltowns as summer resorts, and added military areas to them. After independence, a large number of towns were developed as administrative headquarters, example; Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Dispur, etc. and industrial centres such as Durgapur, Bhilai, Sindri, Barauni. Some old towns also developed as satellite towns around metropolitan cities such as Ghaziabad, Rohtak, Gurgaon around Delhi.
- Physical features – nature of terrain, altitude, climate and availability of water,
- Cultural and ethnic factors – social structure, caste and religion.
- Security factors – defence against thefts and robberies.
- It is an area of compact or closely built up area of houses
- The general living area is distinct and separated from the surrounding farms and pastures.
- The closely built-up area and its intervening streets present some recognisable pattern or geometric shape, such as rectangular, radial, linear, etc.
- Rural settlements are most closely and directly related to land.
- They are dominated by primary activities such as agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, etc.
- The settlements size is relatively small and rate of growth and expansion is low.
- Usually rural settlements are located near water bodies such as rivers, lakes, and springs where water can be easily obtained.
- People living in rural areas have strong relationship among themselves because they are similar in their culture, social and religious issues.
- The houses in rural areas are similar in their construction pattern which is according to the climatic conditions.
- Urban settlements have a close relationship with technology and man made things.
- Most of the people are engaged in secondary, tertiary and quaternary activities in these areas.
- The settlement size is large and there is high density of population.
- Urban settlements are located near industrial areas, ports, administrative centers, etc.
- In order to take care of urban areas, Municipality, Cantonment Board or Notified Area Council are formed. Similarly, in Latin American countries, such as Brazil and Bolivia, any administrative centre is considered urban irrespective of its population size.
| All classes | Population size |
| I | 1,00,000 and more |
| II | 50,000-99,999 |
| III | 20,000-49,999 |
| IV | 10,000-19,999 |
| V | 5,000-9,999 |
| VI | Less than 5,000 |
- Population of more than one lakh people is called a city or class I town.
- Cities accommodating population size between one to five million are mega cities.
- 61% of population living in urban areas lives in class I town.
- Out of 423 cities, 35 urban agglomerations are metros, 6 of them are mega cities with one fifth (21.01%) of population.
- Physical features – nature of terrain, altitude, climate and availability of water,
- Cultural and ethnic factors – social structure, caste and religion.
- Security factors – defence against thefts and robberies.
- A town and its adjoining urban outgrowths,
- Two or more contiguous towns with or without their outgrowths, and
- A city and one or more adjoining towns with their outgrowths together forming a contiguous spread.
- Administrative towns and cities
- Mining towns
- Industrial towns
- Garrisson cantonment towns
- Transport cities
- Educational towns
- Commercial towns
- Religious and cultural towns
- Tourist towns
Long Answer Type Questions
The clustered rural settlement is a compact or closely built up area of houses. Here, the general living area is distinct and separated from the surrounding farms, barns and pastures. The closely built-up area and streets form recognizable pattern or geometric shape, such as rectangular, radial, linear, etc. These are found in fertile alluvial plains and in the northeastern states. People live in compact village for security or region of central India and in Nagaland. In Rajasthan, scarcity of water has necessitated compact settlement for maximum utilisation of available water resources.
Semi-Clustered Settlements: Semi- clustered or fragmented settlements may result from tendency of clustering in a restricted area of dispersed settlement. Sometimes one or more sections of the village society choose or is forced to live a little away from the main cluster or village. Generally, the land-owning and dominant community occupies the central part of the main village.
Hamleted Settlements: Sometimes settlement is divided into several units physically separated from each other bearing a common name motivated by social and ethnic factors. These units are locally called panna, para, palli, nagla, dhani, etc. in various parts of the country.
Dispersed Settlements: Dispersed or isolated settlement pattern in India appears in the form of isolated huts or hamlets of few huts in remote jungles, or on small hills with farms or pasture on the slopes. Extreme dispersion of settlement is caused by fragmented nature of the terrain and land resource base of habitable areas.
Administrative towns and cities: Towns supporting administrative headquarters of higher order are administrative towns, such as Chandigarh ,New Delhi, Bhopal, Shillong, Guwahati, Imphal, Srinagar, Gandhinagar, Jaipur, Chennai, etc.
Industrial towns: Industries constitute prime motive force of these cities such as Mumbai, Salem, Coimbatore, Modinagar, Jamshedpur, Hugli, Bhilai, etc.
Transport Cities: They may be ports primarily engaged in export and import activities such as Kandla, Kochchi, Kozhikode, Vishakhapatnam, etc. or hubs of inland transport such as Agra, Dhulia, Mughal Sarai, Itarsi, Katni, etc.
Commercial towns: Towns and cities specialising in trade and commerce are kept in this class. Kolkata, Saharanpur, Satna, etc. are some examples.
Mining towns: These towns have developed in mineral rich areas such as Raniganj, Jharia, Digboi, Ankaleshwar, Singrauli, etc.
