India is a large country with a very long history of urbanization. In terms of absolute number of towns and cities and size of urban population, India is perhaps the largest urbanized nation in the world today. India’s urban population in 2001 was 285 million and towns and cities numbering 5161 in 2001 are at various stages of technological and cultural modernization with a remarkable unevenness of development among different regions.

In states like Kerala, with little industrialization and a real estate boom fuelled by inflow of investments from overseas destinations, major developments are taking place in almost all parts of the state. When considering the boom and demand for luxury Villas Ernakulam district tops other destinations in Kerala. Almost the entire area of the district is now witnessing fast urbanization.

The present urban hierarchy and the administrative and economic interdependence among cities and towns that have led to the formation of the present urban system are rooted in the developments that began during the British colonial era. The urban system is highly distorted being dominated by large metropolitan centers leading to hypertrophy in places like Mumbai in the west, Kolkota in the east, and Delhi in the north and Chennai in the south.

An urban system has developed around these four distinct metropolises in response to its politico-economic system, transport and communication networks and level of economic development. The western region depicts a higher urbanization level with Mumbai as the major city followed by Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Pune, Surat and Vadodara. The eastern region with Kolkata as the primate city is quite marked with major developments followed by Patna, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Dhanbad and Guwahati. Delhi has been the dominant city in the northern region since 1951 followed by Kanpur, Lucknow, Jaipur, Varanasi, Agra, Allahabad and Chandigarh. The southern region is fast developing with Chennai as the major city followed by Bangalore, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Coimbatore, Cochin and Thiruvananthapuram.