Detail Publikasi
Abstrak
Urbanization refers to the process of transformation of a society which is predominantly rural in character, economy, culture and life style, to the one that is predominantly urban which is basically engaged in industrial and service sector. Urbanization can be said to be an old process but the rapidity in urbanization is seen in recent decades. According to United Nations (2014) nearly two third of the world’s population is poised to live in urban environments by 2050. Indian scenario in this regard is that the country has a low level of urbanization (31.2% in 2011) as compared to developed world but has a very large number of people living in urban areas and constitutes 10.6% of world’s urban population. Urban areas are emerging as economic growth drivers for the entire country and Rajasthan is no exception. But the state is witnessing a moderate rise in urbanization in 2011 i.e. 24.87% as compared to 31.2 % of all India. Study of trends and levels of urbanization has been an important aspect of Urban Geography since beginning. In the present paper Census of India (1901 to 2011) data are used to demonstrate temporal change through excel based cartography and spatial pattern through ArcView GIS based choropleth map. Increase in urban population in Rajasthan is prominently due to rural-urban migration and inclusion of 100 rural settlements as census towns in 2011 census. The present paper is focused on understanding the trends and inter-district variation in the levels of urbanization in Rajasthan using Indian Census data during 1901 to 2011. Major findings of the study are that urban population in Rajasthan increased more than eleven times during the last eleven decades i.e. from 1.48 million in 1901 to 17.05 million in 2011. Level of urbanization in the state has increased from 14.41% in 1901 to 24.87% in 2011. Kota, Jaipur and Ajmer have a very high level of urbanization i.e. 60.3% ,52.4% and 40.1% respectively. While the districts of Dungarpur (6.4%), Barmer (7.0%), Banswara (7.1%), Pratapgarh (8.3%) and Jalore (8.3%) exhibit very low level of urbanization. Districts having high rate of poverty are less urbanized and vice versa.