Abstract:
Rangladesh is charaderi~ed hy rapid urbanization, backed by a huge base populalion. It is
al.,o ~haraclerized by heavy concenlration of population in a few large cities. The national
and regional trends of urbanization in Bangladesh for the la,t three con,ecutive census year,
1981, 1991 and 2001 were studied ill this re,ea,..;h. It revealed that there is con,iderable
spatial and temp,-,ral imbalance ,-,f urbani7.ation in I",lh divisional and regi()nal (Iormer
di,triel) leveL For example the twenty regi()ns of Bangladesh held the varying levels of
urbanizalion ranging fmm about 10% to 60%. AI()ng with thi" regi()nal inequality in the
di,tnbution ()f urban population was analyzed using Location Quotient (L.Q.) of different
regions and Gini Index. The values of Gini-coefficient, were found 0.314. 0,354 and 0.340
in the year 1981, 1991 and 2001 respectively. It indicates that the urban population
distribution is unequal in the twenty regions. The aspects which are closely associaled with
le\'el of urbani/ation ,ueh as percenlage of urban land, urban population den,ity, share 01'
nalionalurban population and share of national urban land were also studied here.
Again the distl'ibution of urban centers according to population size is not uniform. At
presel1t Dhaka, the capital and largest city \vith over 9,7 million people, has about 33';', of
the total urban population, This study also anal}'zed the trend and nature of urbanization at
different hierarchies of urban centers in Bangladesh viz, mega city, statistical metropolitan
area, municipality etc Il ,,'as fO\lnd that the rale of gro",th of population is several times
higher L11 those urban centers compare to the expansion of urban area, lhu, increa.,ing
density of population in these areas. For example during 1991 to 200 I in mega clly Dhaka
the decadal variation of population and area were 49.1 percent and 1.34 pereent respectively
re",tiling increased den,ity "fpopulation from 4795 perSClllsl8q.km to 7054 persons/sq. km
in the ,ame interval of time .
.1hi, study was not only limited to the ,tudy of regional variation of urbanization. II
explicitly analyzed Mlme ,()ci,,-~conomic ami infra,lruclural factors affectillg this variation
With their relative and changing imporlanee in thi, regard. For this purp"se Ri~ariate
Correlation Coefficients of the dependent variable i,e. level of urbanization Wilh
independenl vanable, were measured lor the lhree consecutive cen.,use,>, It was found that
nOll-agricultural activities, level of indu,trialization. percentage of urban land, walcr supply
coverage. sanitalion coverage and el~ctricity coverage are strongly positively cOl'related with
level of urbanization all along. Morcover, it wa, found that all the faclors ar~ not equally
significant ",ilh level of urbanintion all the time. For example thc variables rural-urban
migration and literacy rale Were f()und significant in the year 1991 hut in ]981 and 2001
these wcrc found insignilicant.
In this study secondary data was used and the main source of data was the various census
and annual reporl~ conducted by Bangladesh Burea\l of Statistics (BBS).
