Understanding Spanish Settlement Types and Urbanization

Key Concepts in Spanish Settlement Types

The central area concentrates most of the population and is dedicated to secondary and tertiary sectors.

• Periurban Township: Large spaces concentrating services (shopping centers, entertainment centers, stadiums...) and infrastructure (central freight, highways...).
• Suburban Township: Mode of living predominantly urban, featuring rural residential areas of detached or terraced houses.
• Rururban Settlement: Rural areas devoted to industrial or urban uses (agricultural warehouses, highways, photovoltaic fields, sewage stations, power lines...).
• Rural Settlement: Area with low density, basically dedicated to the primary sector.

Population Definitions in Spain

In Spain:

• A Rural Population village is considered a core with less than 10,000 inhabitants.
• Rural Population Concentrated: When the population is grouped in a single nucleus.
• Dispersed Rural Population: If the population lives in isolated houses or in tiny villages scattered throughout various territories.
• Urban Population: The city population is considered to have more than 10,000 inhabitants.

Urban Systems and Structures

Urban or Urban System

The set composed of several towns of different dimensions that relate to each other and have areas of influence organized hierarchically.

Conurbation

A large urban area with a central importance similar to a single core, but which may have different functions.

Municipalities in Catalonia

Examples include the cities formed by Terrassa and Sabadell, or Reus and Tarragona.

Regional Urban Dynamics

Urban Region

The urban area is very dense, with almost continuous urbanization, separated by few agricultural and forestry areas. The regional urban areas of Barcelona play a central role in economic and administrative centralization of services that influences the whole Catalan area (Barcelona, Maresme...).

Metropolitan Area

The whole forming a large city and the surrounding smaller cities, creating a system with a high exchange of people, goods, etc.

Urbanization

The process by which cities grow in number and area.

Land Use and Planning

City Planning

The discipline responsible for studying these phenomena.

Urban Planning

The activity that organizes the development of urban areas and how life and particular activities are held there.

Urban Land

Terrains with all basic urban services: roads, water, electricity.

Developable Land

The land that municipal planning ordinances consider necessary to ensure population growth and economic activity.

Diffuse City

Urban lifestyles spread throughout the territory. We live in a system of territorial spaces where urban society has a complex nature, reserves or rural, depending on the case.

Urban Township Area

Urban area.