11. Impact of Economic Development on Regional Structure of Urban Systems in India

India is a large country with a very long history of urbanization. The urban systems in India have developed in response to its political economy. Most studies do not consider change at the macro level. The present work studies the growth and evolution of Indian urban systems with an emphasis to include all urban places with more than 20,000 population at national and macroregional levels for a 100-year period and to relate the urban size change with economic development in each macro region. As such this study has the following three objectives: first, it examines the characteristics of urbanization trends as a background to the development of urban systems; second, it measures the rank–size and primacy distribution at national and macroregional levels for a 100-year period, that is, 1901–2001; and third, it evaluates the evolving urban system with economic development. This research has several interesting implications for theory. The present research has contributed to our understanding of the changing structure and behavior of the national and macroregional urban systems in India, through successive time periods during the past century.