Geographies of Hidden Urbanization: The Demographic Limits of Urban Reclassification in Eastern India

Hidden urbanization is often framed as the under-recognition of settlements that exhibit urban characteristics but remain classified as rural. Existing approaches, ranging from density-based methods to satellite-derived and hybrid classifications, frequently produce higher estimates of urbanization level, yet rely on differing definitions of what constitutes urban, thereby limiting comparability. This paper adopts a complementary perspective by shifting attention from measurement outcomes to the processes that shape them. Focusing on two eastern Indian states (West Bengal and Bihar), we examine how demographic dynamics interact with statistical classification systems to influence whether rural settlements are formally recognized as urban. We show that the reclassification of rural settlements, a key pathway of urbanization, depends on demographic momentum. When rural population growth slows, settlements may fail to reach population thresholds and therefore remain unrecognized as urban, despite ongoing economic transformation. This process gives rise to distinct geographies of hidden urbanization, including dispersed and independent forms beyond peri-urban contexts. A comparison with DEGURBA shows that under-recognition persists across frameworks, revealing how classification criteria shape the visibility of settlement transformation. Our study demonstrates that hidden urbanization reveals how demographic dynamics, in conjunction with other processes, influence the statistical classification systems that determine what is officially recognized as urban.