Population Size
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- It is an important criteria used by most countries to define urban areas. The lower limit of the population size for a settlement to be designated as urban 5,000 in India and 30,000 in Japan.
- Density of 400 persons per sq km and share of non-agricultural workers are taken into consideration in India.
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Occupational Structure
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- In some countries, such as India, the major economic activities in addition to the size of the population in designating a settlement as urban are also taken as a criterion.
- In India a settlement is called urban, if more than 75 per cent of its economically productive population is engaged in non-agricultural pursuits.
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Administration
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- The administrative setup is a criterion for classifying a settlement as urban in some countries. For example, in India, a settlement of any size is classified as urban, if it has a municipality, Cantonment Board or Notified Area Council.
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Functions of Urban towns
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- Administrative Towns- National capitals, which house the administrative offices of central governments, such as New Delhi, Canberra, Beijing, Addis Ababa, Washington D.C., and London etc. are called administrative Town.
- Trading and Commercial Towns- Agricultural market towns, such as, Winnipeg and Kansas city; banking and financial centres like Frankfurt and Amsterdam; large inland centres like Manchester and St Louis; and transport nodes such as, Lahore, Baghdad and Agra have been important trading centres.
- Cultural Towns- Places of pilgrimage, such as Jerusalem, Mecca, Jagannath Puri and Varanasi etc. are considered cultural towns. These urban centres are of great religious importance
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