In India and some other countries, a census town is designated as a town that satisfies certain characteristics.

India

In India, a census town is one which is not statutorily notified and administered as a town, but nevertheless whose population has attained urban characteristics. They are characterized by the following: * Population exceeds 5,000 * At least 75% of main male working population is employed outside the agricultural sector * Minimum

population density Population density (in agriculture: Stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical ...

of 400 persons per km² Examples of Indian census towns include

Avinissery Avinissery is a census town in Thrissur district, just 6 km from district headquarters, in the state of Kerala, India. Avinissery is also the name of a Gram Panchayat in Thrissur District. Demographics India census, Avinissery cen ...

in Thrissur District of

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

Greater Noida Greater Noida is a planned city located in Gautam Buddha Nagar district of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The city was created as an extension to Noida area under the ''UP Industrial Area Development Act, 1976''. Situated south-east of t ...

and Chakeri in

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

, Indranagar in

Tripura Tripura (, Bengali: ) is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a population of 36.71 lakh ( 3.67 million). It is bordered by Assam and Mizoram to the ea ...

, Begampur, Chandpara,

Nandigram Nandigram is a census town in the Nandigram I Community Development Block of the Haldia subdivision in the Purba Medinipur district of the Indian state of West Bengal. In 2007, the West Bengal government allowed the Salim Group to set up a ch ...

Chittaranjan Chittaranjan is a census town in the Salanpur CD block in the Asansol Sadar subdivision of Paschim Bardhaman district in the state of West Bengal, India. It is popularly known for the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works. It was recently featured i ...

and

Beliatore Beliatore is a Census Town and a Gram Panchayat in the Barjora CD block in the Bankura Sadar subdivision of the Bankura district in the state of West Bengal, India. Beliatore is the birthplace of artist Jamini Roy. History Binoy Ghosh visite ...

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...

Chevella Chevella is a town, mandal and suburb of Hyderabad in Ranga Reddy district of the Indian state of Telangana. It is the headquarters of surrounding villages with many government establishments like Judicial court, Revenue Division Office, Acp of ...

Telangana Telangana (; , ) is a state in India situated on the south-central stretch of the Indian peninsula on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the eleventh-largest state and the twelfth-most populated state in India with a geographical area of and 3 ...

, Amini in

Lakshadweep Lakshadweep (), also known as Laccadives (), is a union territory of India. It is an archipelago of 36 islands in the Arabian sea, located off the Malabar Coast. The name ''Lakshadweep'' means "one lakh islands" in Sanskrit, though the Lac ...

Deolali Deolali, or Devlali (), is a small hill station and a census town in Nashik district of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Now it is part of Nashik Metropolitan Region. Deolali has an important army base. Deolali Camp, one of the oldest Indian m ...

in Maharashtra,

Ghatshila Ghatshila is a census town in the Ghatshila CD block in the Ghatshila subdivision of the East Singhbhum district, in the Indian state of Jharkhand. History Legend says that the royal family of the Kingdom of Dhalbhum had originated from ...

Purbi Singhbhum District East Singhbhum is one of the 24 districts of Jharkhand, India. It was created on 16 January 1990. More than 50% of the district is covered by dense forests and mountains, where wild animals once roamed freely. It is known for being a centre of ind ...

Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . I ...

, BGR Township ( Bongaigaon Refinery Township) in Bongaigaon Urban Agglomeration of

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

Pileru Pileru is a census town in Annamayya district of Rayalaseema region of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Pileru is located 188 kilometers North-West of Chennai, the capital city of Tamil Nadu and 196 kilometers North East of Bangalore, the ca ...

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

, Chikhli in

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

and Ichgam in Jammu and Kashmir.

Census 2011

The number of census towns (CTs) in India grew from 1,362 in 2001 to 3,894 in 2011. As per Pradhan (2013), these CTs account for 30% of the urban growth in the last decade. Pradhan also notes that the largest increase in the number of CTs was in the states of West Bengal and Kerala.

Ministry of Urban Development Notification

The Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, in May 2016 asked the 28 states in India to take action to start the process of recognizing CTs as urban areas. The argument given for this conversion was that a statutory Urban Local Body (ULB) is required to ensure planned development of these areas. In this notification, Rajiv Gauba, Secretary (Urban Development) notes:

The opportunity of planned urban development might get lost if unplanned construction and ad hoc provisioning of infrastructure is allowed to take place over a long time.

Additionally, the Ministry, in the notification, has informed the states that they stand to gain from according statutory status to these towns. With a greater number of statutory towns, the states would be able to get more money from the Centre as per the 14th Finance Commission Report. Additionally, under

Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission was renamed to Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and then relaunched by Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi in June 2015 with the focus to establish infrastructure tha ...

(AMRUT), 50% weightage is given to the number of statutory towns in the state/UT to determine the allocation of funds to these states/UTs. Following this notification, Maharashtra state government converted 19 CTs in the state to statutory ULBs. These 19 CTs are in close proximity to the town of Pune and this conversion is expected to lessen the infrastructure and population pressures on the town.

Ireland

According to Ireland's Central Statistics Office, a census town by definition has a "cluster of fifty or more occupied dwellings, not having a legally defined boundary, in which within a distance of 800 metres there is a nucleus of either thirty occupied houses on both sides of the road or twenty occupied houses on one side of the Road". Census towns were distinct from municipal towns; the latter, which had legally defined boundaries and local government powers, were abolished by the Local Government Reform Act 2014.

References

External links

* {{cite web, url=http://www.censusindia.net/results/town.php?stad=A&state5=999, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040616075334/http://www.censusindia.net/results/town.php?stad=A&state5=999, archive-date=2004-06-16, title= Census of India 2001: Data from the 2001 Census, including cities, villages and towns (Provisional), access-date=2008-11-01, publisher= Census Commission of India Types of towns