AQA GCSE GEOGRAPHY KNOWLEDGE ORGANISER – PAPER 2
Urban issues and challenges: urbanisation
Key terms
Urban: Built-up areas such as towns
and cities
Rural: Areas of lower population in
villages – the countryside
Urbanisation: The increasing
proportion of people living in urban
areas (towns and cities).
Counter-urbanisation: The
movement of people from towns and
cities to surrounding rural areas
Suburbanisation: The outward
growth of towns and cities, which
may swallow up villages on the
outskirts of the urban area.
Characterised by large housing
developments.
megacities
These are cities with over 10 million
inhabitants.
Top 5 largest by population (2024):
•Tokyo, Japan – 37.1 million
•New Delhi, India – 33.9 million
•Shanghai, China – 29.2 million
•Dhaka, Bangladesh – 23.2 million
•Sao Paulo – 22.6 million
Urbanisation trends
Urbanisation is linked to industrialisation – people move to urban areas to
find work (which is more reliable than farming).
57% of the global population live in urban areas (predicted to reach 67% by
2050).
HICs: High proportion of people living in urban areas (more than 60%) – but
urban population is slowing in these countries.
NEEs: Rapid urbanisation since the 1980s (e.g. Nigeria, Brazil, India, China) –
most of the world’s megacities are in NEEs.
LICs: Typically less than 25% of population living in urban areas, however
many LIC cities are now growing rapidly.
Reasons for urbanisation
•Migration
•Natural increase
Migration (push-pull theory)
Cities may grow because people move to them from
other places.
international migration: When people move into cities
from other countries.
Internal migration: When people move from other places within the
same country.
Rural-urban migration: When people move to cities (urban areas)
from the countryside (rural areas).
Push factors: Reasons to leave a place, e.g. poverty, lack of access to
education and healthcare.
Pull factors: Reasons to move to a place, e.g. job opportunities, better
access to services.
Natural increase
When the birth rate is higher
than the death rate =
population increase.
In NEEs/LICs this happens because the
death rate is decreasing rapidly – to
better access to a varied diet, medical care
and sanitation – fewer people dying of
diseases linked to poverty or malnutrition.
