The types of Urban settlements are designated as towns, cities, million cities etc.
It is based on their size of population.
- Town – A town is one in a rural community, having much smaller in size of a population than a city.
- City – A densely populated area of considerable size is a city which is larger than a town. An urban center with 1 lakh and more population is called a city.
- Conurbation – The term conurbation applies to a large area of urban development that resulted from the merging of several towns of cities eg: Greater London. Greater Mumbai etc.
- Megalopolis – Megalopolis are the extended urban or metropoliton area, typically consisting of several sites merging with the suburbs of one or more cities.
- Million City – Total population of 1 million and above, the urban area is known as million cities. The total number of million cities was 160 in 1975, 438 in 2005 & 468 in 2013.
- Mega city – A mega city is a general term for cities together with their suburbs with population of more than 10 million people or mega city is defined as a metropolitan area with total population in excess of 10 million people.
Newyork was the first to attain the status of a mega city by 1950 with population of 12.5 million.
