Level of urbanisation in Varanasi and its adjoining districts of state of Uttar Pradesh in India

Abstract

From a demographic point of view, urbanisation is the proportion of urban population to the total population of the region. Past century has seen acceleration in the pace of urbanisation, particularly in developing countries. During 1950-2010, urban population of the developed countries has increased nearly two times from 427.27 million to 924.7 million, while during the same time interval it has increased approximately eight times from 309.52 million to 2569.9 million in developing countries.

Being an agriculturally dominant country, the level of urbanisation in India is comparatively lower (27.78%) than other developing countries. Even this figure is lower than ours one of the neighbour Pakistan (35%). The state of Uttar Pradesh, the largest state of India (according to population), has a share of 16.17% of total population and only 3.36% of urban population of the country. Study area too, it’s not an exception. Only, 15.9% population of the study area is residing in urban areas. Taking four variables, the paper attempts to measure the level of urbanisation at tahsil (sub-district) level by using Z-score. Finding of the study revealed that level of urbanisation is higher in northern region in comparison to southern region in the study area.

Key words: Urbanisation, Z-Score (Standardised Score).