Published Paper Details:

Urban growth is considered as one of the essential indicators of economic growth and development of a country. Along with the increase of population, towns have been growing rapidly in physical dimension in the past few decades. Bolpur town is one of the fast growing towns of the Birbhum District of West Bengal. Bolpur town is situated almost in the middle of the Bolpur- Sriniketan C.D. Block, which is the southernmost Block of Birbhum District. It includes world famous Santiniketan , place of Rabindranath Tagore. The objective is to study the pattern of urban expansion and rapid population growth of Bolpur town and analyze the factors behind this urbanization process. The study is based on secondary data. The relevant maps are drawn by using GIS application. Bolpur town has been grown up from a village to a municipal town. Bolpur is the only municipality in Bolpur sub-division. The decadal growth rate in 1991-2001 was 24.1%. Various economic and cultural factors are responsible for the rapid urban expansion. But variation of population growth is also found among the different wards of Bolpur Town.