The Origin and Growth of Urbanization in the World

Although there were a few cities as early as 4000 B.C., the cities of the ancient world were generally small and had to be supported by much larger rural populations. "Urbanized societies," in which a high proportion of the population lives in cities, developed only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The process of urbanization has moved rapidly in the entire world since 1800, and the peack is not yet in sight. A diminution of the rate of urbanization in the older industrial countries is being compensated for by an increase in the rate in the underdeveloped areas.