GROWTH OF URBAN POPULATION IN HIMACHAL PRADESH: A SPATIO-TEMPORAL ANALYSIS

Growth of urban population is the characteristic of 21st century; urban towns are evolving at much faster rate than the earlier decades. Himachal Pradesh, a small state of India covering 1.69 percent of area has least urbanisation of all states. In this paper, trends of urbanisations and spatial patterns of growth in urban population in Himachal Pradesh have been analysed from 1951 to 2011, with the help of secondary data and GIS software. With the analysed trends and spatial patterns it has been found that after 1961 there is a constant increase in urban population. Shimla with 24.74 percent has highest portion of urban population, followed by Solan with 17.6 percent. Lahaul Spiti and Kinnaur have no urban population due to remote locations. Other districts have moderate to low portion of urban population.