JOMO KENYATTA UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND

TECHNOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE

URBAN STUDIES
LECTURE 05
CITY TYPES
SETTLEMENTS
• A settlement, locality or populated place is a community in
which people live.
• A settlement can range from a small number of dwellings
grouped together to the largest of cities with surrounding
urbanized areas.
• Settlements may include hamlets, villages, towns and cities
where people live and work.
• A settlement conventionally includes its constructed facilities
such as roads, enclosures, field systems, boundary banks and
ditches, ponds, parks and woods, wind and water mills,
manor houses, moats and churches.
TOWN
• A town is a human settlement. Towns are
generally larger than villages but smaller than
cities, though the criteria to distinguish them
vary considerably between different parts of
the world. Some geographers further define a
town as having 2,500 to 20,000 residents.
Towns usually have local self-government, and
they may grow around specialized economic
activities, such as mining or railroading.
URBAN AREA
• An urban area is the region surrounding a city. Most
inhabitants of urban areas have non-agricultural
jobs. Urban areas are very developed, meaning there
is a density of human structures such as houses,
commercial buildings, roads, bridges, and railways.
• "Urban area" can refer to towns, cities, and suburbs.
An urban area includes the city itself, as well as the
surrounding areas. Many urban areas are called
metropolitan areas, or "greater," as in Greater New
York or Greater London.
SUBURBS
• Suburbs are smaller urban areas that
surround cities. Most suburbs are less densely
populated than cities. They serve as the
residential area for much of the citys work
force. The suburbs are made up of mostly
single-family homes, stores, and services
CITY - DEFINITION
• A city is an area in which a large number of
people live fairly close together. 
• Cities usually have their own separate
governments and systems for maintaining and
providing utilities and transportation.
• A town is a human settlement. Towns are
generally larger than villages but smaller than
cities, though the criteria to distinguish them vary
considerably between different parts of the world.
RURAL AREAS
• Rural areas , often called "the country," have low
population density and large amounts of undeveloped
land.
• Usually, the difference between a rural area and an urban
area is clear. But in developed countries with large
populations, such as Japan, the difference is becoming less
clear.
• In the United States, settlements with 2,500 inhabitants or
more are defined as urban. In Japan, which is far more
densely populated than the U.S., only settlements with
30,000 people or more are considered urban
• Throughout the world, the dominant pattern
of migration within countries has been from
rural to urban areas. This is partly because
improved technology has decreased the need
for agricultural workers and partly because
cities are seen as offering greater economic
opportunities. Most of the worlds people,
however, still live in rural areas
FACTORS DETERMINING CITY TYPES

• Demographic Factors
• Economic factors
• Social factors
• Technological Factors
 Demographic Factors
The following factors are considered when
determining different city types :
• Most populous
• most densely populated area
• largest area
 Economic Factors
• Besides population, the selected characteristics
are dominated by economic factors.
– Economic characteristics: GDP, GDP per capita, and
GDP per worker
– Economic growth: GDP growth, GDP per capita
growth, and GDP per worker growth
– Traded Clusters : productivity, foreign direct
investment, foreign direct investment per capita
– Innovation: university research impact, patents per
capita, venture capital per capita
• Non-direct economic factors include:
– Talent: percentage of population with higher
education
– Connectivity: aviation passenger flow, download
speed
Other Factors :
• The following factors have a huge influence on
a city’s economy and growth:
– Landuses
– domestic investment
– global trade flows
– freight and logistics systems
– infrastructure such as roads, trains, and public
transit
– national, regional, and city governance
 CLASSIFYING SETTLEMENTS
1. Classification
according to pattern
• There are 5 types of
settlement classified
according to their
pattern; these are,
isolated, dispersed,
nucleated, and linear
• An isolated
settlement co
nsists of a
single farm or
house very
remote from
any other one,
usually found
in farming or
hunting rural
communities.
• A dispersed settlement is made up of several
houses, scattered or dispersed (as the name
implies). One house may be up to one or more
kilometers from the next.
• In
a nucleated or co
mpact settlement,
the buildings are
clustered, linked
by roads, and the
settlement itself
may have a nearly
circular or
irregular shape.
Such settlements
can be either
cultural or urban,
depending on the
size and the
functions they
perform.
• A linear or elongated
settlement forms a straight
or curved line, following a
line of movement, such as
a road, river, coastline or
the foot of an elongated
escarpment. This type of
settlement is found in rural
area, but linear
developments may
constitute extensions of
towns on their outskirts.
• Finally, the integrated
nucleated and linear settlements combines the
characteristics of both types of settlement and
they are star-like. They often occur at junctions,
and a number of them in urban settlements.
 2.Classification according to size and
housing density
• Size and housing density are used together
with settlement functions to classify
settlements into two major categories:
Rural settlements are often small in size and
have low housing and population densities.
Urban settlements are larger in size and have
many houses built close together.
RURAL SETTLEMENTS
• Rural settlements can further be broken down into these four grades on the basis
of size; homestead*, farmstead, hamlet and village.
• A single homestead has just one compound, usually isolated and owned by a
family, and one may be many kilometres from the next.
• A farmstead consists of two or more homesteads, usually dispersed in a farmland
and occupied by up to fifty individuals.
• A hamlet is made up of several dispersed, nucleated or linear homesteads
generally with shops, schools or other service centres and occupied by some
hundreds of persons who are engaged in primary activities like farming, hunting
and fishing.
• A village, like a hamlet, may be dispersed, nucleated or both nucleated or linear,
but the village has more homesteads and the population may be up to several
thousands. The people engage in primary occupations, but there may also be
craft and cottage industries, and service centres like schools, post offices, health
centers and markets.
URBAN SETTLEMENTS
• Urban settlements can equally be graded into seven, according
to size. These are towns, suburbs, cities, metropolis,
conurbations , megapolis and ecumenopolis
• Towns are urban settlements of up to several thousand
persons. Houses are built together and the emphasis is more
on secondary and tertiary rather than on primary occupation.
Usually, a town has large chain stores, and many other social
and commercial facilities.
• Large town - a large town has a population of 10,000 to
100,000.
• Suburb - a mixed-use town or residential area, existing either
as part of a city or urban area or as a separate residential
community within commuting distance of a city.
• Cities are the major towns of a country, like the major
state capitals which have administrative functions. The
old concept of a city being a walled town is no longer
tenable as cities are no longer walled these days. They
are generally larger than towns.
– Small City or "Borough"- a city that functions as a type of
municipality or subdivision of a consolidated city.
– Medium city - a city would have abundant services, but not
as many as a large city. The population of a city is between
100,000 and 300,000 people.
– Large city - a city with a large population and many services.
The population is less than 1 million but over 300,000
• Metropolis - a large city and its suburbs consisting of multiple cities
and towns. The population is usually one to three million

• A conurbation grows when two or more metropolis or parts have

grown and joined together to form a large urban area of three to ten
million people. The boundary between original towns becomes
blurred, just like we have in Lagos (Ikeja) and Accra (Tema).

• Megalopolis are several cities or conurbations consisting of more than

ten million people in total which have grown over the years and have
joined together to form a massive sprawling urban settlements. Such
settlements stretch over several square kilometers and, as
conurbations, it is difficult to known where one original city ends and
the other begins. Megapolis is the highest in the hierarchy of urban
settlements. Examples are New York-Boston-Philadelphia and Greater
Los Angeles (USA), Tokyo (Japan), Greater London (Britain), Mexico
City (Central America), and Dusseldolf-Duisburg-Essen-Dortmund, in
the Rhur manufacturing region of Germany.
• Ecumenopolis - a theoretical construction in which
the entire area of Earth that is taken up by human
settlements, or at least, that those are linked so
that to create urban areas so big that they can
shape an urban continuum through thousands of
kilometers which cannot be considered as a
megalopolis. As of the year 2009, the United
Nations estimated that for the first time more than
50% of the world's populations lived in cities, so if
these were linked, the total population of this area
would be about 3,400,000,000 people as of 2010.