What is urbanisation? GCSE Geography

Urbanisation is the process by which an increasing proportion of a country's population comes to live in towns and cities rather than rural areas. It is driven by a mix of push factors that move people away from the countryside and pull factors that draw them to urban centres, including jobs, services and a perceived better quality of life.

This guide covers the AQA GCSE Geography definition, the causes and consequences of urbanisation, why it is happening at very different rates in high-income and low-income countries, and the case-study patterns examiners want you to recall.

Urbanisation is the increase in the proportion of a country's population living in urban areas (towns and cities). It is a process measured as a percentage: A country with 60% of its people in cities is more urbanised than one with 30%.

It is not the same as urban growth. Urban growth refers to the absolute increase in the number of people living in cities, while urbanisation refers to the share. A city can grow without urbanisation happening, if the rural population is growing at the same rate.

Urbanisation happens because people choose, or feel forced, to move from rural to urban areas. The factors driving this are split into push factors (reasons to leave the countryside) and pull factors (reasons to move to the city). Examiners want to see both in a strong answer.

Rural-to-urban migration is the most cited cause of urbanisation, but it is not the only one. Cities also grow because of natural increase: When birth rates are higher than death rates within the city itself, the urban population grows from inside as well as from incomers.

In many lower-income countries, urban populations are young (because migrants tend to be working-age adults), so birth rates in cities are high and natural increase adds significantly to growth. AQA mark schemes credit students who mention both migration and natural increase.

Urbanisation does not happen at the same pace everywhere. High-income countries (HICs) like the UK urbanised earliest, during the Industrial Revolution, and are now mostly urban (around 84% of the UK lives in urban areas) with slow further change. Some HICs even show counter-urbanisation, where people move from cities back to smaller towns and villages.

Lower-income countries (LICs) and newly emerging economies (NEEs) are urbanising rapidly now. Cities like Lagos, Mumbai, Dhaka and Jakarta are growing by hundreds of thousands of people each year. This is where the AQA case studies tend to focus.

Rapid urbanisation can bring real benefits, including stronger economies, more access to services, and reduced rural poverty. It also brings serious problems when growth outpaces planning. These problems are often the focus of long-answer (9 mark) exam questions.

A megacity is an urban area with more than 10 million people. In 1950 only New York had passed that threshold (Tokyo joined within a few years). In 2024 there are over 30, and most new megacities are in Asia and Africa. The fastest growth is in cities like Lagos, which is projected to be the world's largest city by 2100.

AQA tends to use Lagos or Rio de Janeiro as the NEE/LIC case study and London or Birmingham as the HIC case study. Learn one of each in detail, with specific numbers and named locations.

Question: Explain the causes of rapid urbanisation in a lower-income or newly emerging country you have studied. (6 marks)

A strong answer names a city (e.g. Lagos), names one push and one pull factor with specific detail (e.g. crop failure in rural northern Nigeria pushing families south, factory and oil jobs pulling them to Lagos), and mentions natural increase. Aim for three developed points and one named place to hit the 6-mark band.