International Journal of Contemporary Research In Multidisciplinary, 2025;4(1):96-99
Encircling Zone of Influence (Umland) of Sri Ganganagar City, Rajasthan
Author Name: Pratik Sharma; Dr. Shyam S Khinchi;
Abstract
The zone of influence or ‘Umland’ is an important term to express the inter-connection between the town and its surrounding rural settlements. The town in itself is not a self-sufficient unit but has to rely upon the surrounding rural areas for the supply of various essential supplies and raw materials. This interrelation is a key concept in urban geography. A town or city acts as a service centre for adjoining rural areas. Umland or zone of influence is an important indicator to understand the economic impact of towns or cities on their adjoining rural areas. There are two approaches to identify the umland of a city quantitative and a qualitative approach. In the qualitative approach, various service indicators are taken to identify umland, for example. Supply of food-grains, milk, circulation of newspapers, accessibility to secondary education, etc. In this study for analysing the zone of influence of Sri Ganganagar city, data is collected in two ways: one is interviews and surveys, and the other is distributing google-sheet by email. Supply of food-grains, milk and vegetable supplies and circulation of newspaper is taken into account to analyze zone of influence in the above study. The zone of influence is evaluated based on various service indices.
Keywords
Zone of influence, Umland, Hinterland, Sri Ganganagar, City- regions