What an urban area is at Higher Level: The same ideas as SL, with different places: Tokyo and Hokkaido, and Japan's merged towns. At HL, be ready to question urban data: who decided what counts as urban, and would another definition change the answer?
Practise this as you read
- Calculate a population density from data.
- Question how 'urban' was defined before comparing places.
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Built-up and crowded: An urban area is where land is mostly covered by buildings and many people live in a small space.
The points to remember
- An urban area is a built-up area: land mostly covered by buildings and hard surfaces.
- It has a high population density: many people per square kilometre.
- It has many buildings close together: homes, offices, shops, factories.
- It has infrastructure: roads, railways, water and sewage pipes, power lines.
- Population density = number of people ÷ area (people per km²).
Calculate density: Density = people ÷ area. Tokyo's 23 wards: 9,733,276 ÷ 627.5 = about 15,500 people per km². Divide people by area, never area by people.
Real example: Tokyo's 23 central wards hold 9.7 million people in 628 km². Under and above the streets run infrastructure: one of the world's busiest rail networks, water mains and power lines.
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Why do people crowd together? Because being close makes many things easier: getting to work, buying and selling, meeting other people.
Five reasons to live close together
- Residential: homes, close to work and services.
- Productive: factories and offices, so jobs.
- Trade: markets, shops and ports, where goods are bought and sold.
- Cultural: museums, theatres, places of worship.
- Social: meeting friends and family, sport, leisure.
Residential
- Flats for millions, many in tall blocks.
Cultural
- Shrines, temples, museums and kabuki theatre.
Productive
- The offices of Marunouchi and Shinjuku.
Trade
- Shops, and Toyosu, the city's huge fish market.
Social
- Busy streets such as Shibuya, parks, stadiums.
Remember it as: Live, make, trade, enjoy, meet.
A rural area is the opposite of an urban one: few people spread over a large area.
Rural areas
- A rural area has a low population density.
- Its settlements are dispersed: farms, hamlets and villages spread out, with fields between.
- Much of the land is farmland, forest or wild land, not buildings.
- There is less infrastructure: fewer roads, pipes and services.
- Compare the two in one sentence: 'whereas'.
Urban area
- High population density
- Dense, built-up settlement
- Much infrastructure
Rural area
- Low population density
- Dispersed settlements
- Little infrastructure
Real example: Hokkaido, Japan's northern island, has about 63 people per km² outside its cities. Dairy farms and small towns are dispersed across a land of forest and fields.
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Small or large, a town, a city or a suburb counts as urban. But where does 'urban' begin? Each country decides.
Cities, towns, suburbs, and who counts them
- Cities, towns and suburbs are all classed as urban areas.
- A suburb is a lower-density area of homes at the edge of a city.
- Each country sets its own definition of urban: a minimum population, density or type of work.
- So urban figures from different countries are not always comparable.
- If a definition changes, a place can become 'urban' without anyone moving.
Sweden
- Urban: any built-up area
- of at least 200 people
India
- 5,000+ people, 400+ per km²
- and most men in non-farm work
Japan
- Urban: cities ('shi')
- of usually 50,000+ people
Real example: between 1999 and 2010 Japan merged many small towns and villages into larger cities. The share of Japanese people counted as urban jumped from about 79% to 91%, with almost no one moving house: the definition changed, not the people.
How this comes up: Paper 2, Section B (a): outline the features of an urban area, with a named city [4].
More than half of the world's people now live in urban areas.
Outline the features of an urban area, with reference to a named city.
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