It is well acknowledged that the Global South urbanised rapidly during last thirty to forty years, but with regional differences in levels of urbanisation. Urbanisation has taken a multi-faceted character in this segment, as the Third World is itself large and diverse. In countries like India urbanisation has been taking place against a background of a largely rural and agrarian socio-economy. It would be interesting enough in this connection to study the nature of urban development in South 24 Prganas district of West Bengal state in India. Trend in level and pattern of urbanisation here has been analysed since 1951. Distribution of urban centres and urban population at sub-district level has been also discussed chronologically. A compararison among Police Stations or C. D. Blocks has been done since 1951 to measure their degree of urbanisation more accurately taking into consideration four major parameters, like level of urbanisation, share of urban area in total, density of urban population and urban centres. Detailed analysis on trends of urban growth and their size-class classification also provides with another vital insight. In fact, the process of urbanisation in South 24 Parganas bears some uniqueness. In spite of being an adjoining district of the Kolkata metropolis, South 24 Parganas is one among the largely rural districts of West Bengal. Till recently the district had a very small proportion of urban population, but growing very fast since independence. However, urban development has been largely in-situ and Kolkata-centric in nature.
