Hierarchy of Rural Settlements: A Strategy  for Balanced Regional Development in  Aligarh District

Shabnam Khan; Ateeque Ahmad

Volume : II, Issue : IX, September - 2013

Hierarchy of Rural Settlements: A Strategy for Balanced Regional Development in Aligarh District

Shabnam Khan, Ateeque Ahmad

Abstract :

Finding out the hierarchy of settlement is considered as an important step for providing balanced regional development to any area. The present study focuses on the identification of settlement hierarchy on the basis of threshold of functions and to analyze the relationship between population and centrality score of rural service centres or central places for achieving balanced regional development. For this study secondary data pertaining to the socio–economic facilities or services has been collected for each rural settlements of the Aligarh District. To identify the hierarchy of rural settlements, Median Population Threshold (MPT) has been calculated by using Reed Muench Method. Spacing of rural settlements has been calculated using Mather�s model of Mean Spacing. The results shows that out of 1180 inhabited rural settlements found in Aligarh district only 268 rural settlements lie in the category of rural service centre or central place which are further categories under six hierarchic level.