Urbanisation and Migration
Urbanisation
- Census definition of an urban area: (a) all statutory towns (municipality, corporation, cantonment board, notified town area committee); (b) census towns: population at least 5,000, at least 75 percent of male workers in non-agricultural work, and density of at least 400 per sq km.
- Urban population: 377 million (31.16 percent) in 2011. Number of towns: 7,935 (2011).
- Class I cities: population of 1,00,000 or more. Metropolitan city: 10 lakh or more; mega-city: 1 crore or more. In 2011 the three mega-cities were Greater Mumbai (Mumbai), Delhi and Kolkata; Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad are close.
- Most urbanised states: Goa (62.2 percent), Mizoram (52), Tamil Nadu (48.4), Kerala (47.7), Maharashtra (45.2). Delhi is 97.5 percent urban. Least: Himachal Pradesh (10), Bihar (11.3), Assam.
- Largest urban agglomeration: Greater Mumbai, then Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad.
- Urban problems: slums, traffic, waste, floods, air pollution.
- Schemes: Smart Cities Mission (2015) (100 cities), AMRUT, Swachh Bharat Mission - Urban, HRIDAY, PM Awas Yojana (Urban).
- Satellite towns: Gurugram, Noida, Navi Mumbai.
- Million-plus cities: 53 in Census 2011.
Migration
- Migration = movement of people from one place to another for residence. Internal (rural-urban, rural-rural, urban-urban, urban-rural) and international.
- Census 2011 reported about 45.36 crore (37 percent) migrants by place of last residence; women migrate mostly because of marriage; men migrate for work.
- Major out-migration states: Uttar Pradesh and Bihar; major in-migration states: Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana.
- Push factors: poverty, unemployment, disasters; pull factors: jobs, education, services.
- International migration: the Indian diaspora is the largest in the world (about 3.5 crore people of Indian origin and NRIs). India received about USD 125 billion in remittances in 2023-24, the highest in the world (World Bank; check the latest figure).
- Pravasi Bharatiya Divas: 9 January (since 2003).
- Refugees: Tibetans, Sri Lankan Tamils, Bangladesh; see the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019.
Keep practising
Notes are only half the work. Test yourself with questions and discuss doubts with other aspirants.
Prepared for exam revision from NCERT, standard geography textbooks, the Census of India 2011, the India State of Forest Report, IMD, Ministry of Agriculture and other official sources. Maps are schematic teaching maps, not Survey of India maps, and zone boundaries are approximate. Figures such as production, capacity, counts of parks and ports, and census status change, so check the latest official source before relying on them. Found a mistake? Tell us.