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Urban Issues and ChallengesIntroduction

The Greatest Migration in Human History

Part of Urban Growth and the Global Urban World — GCSE Geography

This introduction covers The Greatest Migration in Human History within Urban Growth and the Global Urban World for GCSE Geography. Revise Urban Growth and the Global Urban World in Urban Issues and Challenges for GCSE Geography with 15 exam-style questions and 22 flashcards. This topic shows up very often in GCSE exams, so students should be able to explain it clearly, not just recognise the term. It is section 1 of 14 in this topic. Use this introduction to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.

Topic position

Section 1 of 14

Practice

15 questions

Recall

22 flashcards

🌆 The Greatest Migration in Human History

In 1800, the world had just 1 billion people, and only 3 in every 100 of them lived in a city. Most humans on Earth had never seen a building taller than a church. London, the largest city on the planet, held just 1 million people. Everything — food, trade, family, work — revolved around the land.

Today, more than half of humanity lives in cities. By 2050, it will be 7 in every 10 people. Somewhere right now, in Lagos or Dhaka or Mumbai or Kinshasa, a family is packing their possessions, saying goodbye to the village where their grandparents were born, and boarding a bus to a city where they have never lived. They are joining the greatest voluntary mass migration in human history — and it is happening, every single day, at a pace that the industrial revolution never came close to matching.

Consider this: every single week, 1.4 million people in the developing world move to a city. That is the entire population of Greater Manchester arriving in urban areas — every seven days. The scale is almost impossible to comprehend. And it is reshaping the world — creating extraordinary opportunity, spectacular wealth, cultural energy, and at exactly the same time, some of the most severe poverty, overcrowding, and environmental pressure the planet has ever seen.

This topic is about understanding why that is happening, where it is concentrated, and what it actually looks and feels like on the ground in one of its most dramatic locations: Lagos, Nigeria.

Keep building this topic

Read this section alongside the surrounding pages in Urban Growth and the Global Urban World. That gives you the full topic sequence instead of a single isolated revision point.

What Is Urbanisation and Why Is It Happening?Where Urbanisation Is Happening — and Why the Pattern MattersLagos, Nigeria: Africa's Megacity in Full Throttle

Practice Questions for Urban Growth and the Global Urban World

What is the definition of urbanisation?

  • A. The movement of people from cities back to rural areas
  • B. The increase in the proportion of a country's population living in urban areas
  • C. The physical growth of a city's built-up area outwards into the countryside
  • D. The growth of the total world population over time
1 markfoundation

Define the terms 'push factor' and 'pull factor' in the context of rural-to-urban migration.

2 marksstandard

Quick Recall Flashcards

What is a megacity?
A city with a population above 10 million.
What is urbanisation?
An increase in the proportion of people living in towns and cities.

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What Is Urbanisation and Why Is It Happening?