Urban Sprawling and Structural Changes: A Case Study in the 10 Km Buffer Area of Burdwan Municipality

Abstract

every year by urban growth. Burdwan municipality is the core town of Burdwan district. Urban sprawling takes place rapidly during the year 1971 – 2001 to its surrounding villages which are mainly under the buffer area of 10 km from Burdwan Municipality. Urban sprawling in the Burdwan municipality area creates the structural changes like household density, population density, literacy rate and primary occupation to its surroundings areas. The present paper deals with the study of Urban Sprawling and Structural Changes in the10 km buffer area of Burdwan Municipality.

In order to study the spatial pattern and extent of sprawl over the time period of 1971 – 2001 Topographical sheets of 73 M/15 and 73 M/16 of 1964 has been used and satellite images were taken from IRS – ID LIIS III data of 2001 and 1990 which were merged with Pan image of the same year and time. Various demographic facts were collected from Census Reports (1971, 1981, 1991, 2001) and other Governmental reports. Sprawl has been delineated applying slicing method on different satellite imageries of IRS – ID LISS III.

The study throws a very interesting and clear picture of urban development in and around of Burdwan Municipality. The changing face of urban agglomeration and structural changes set an example of urban transformation of rural villages.