Characteristics and Functions of Urban Centres

25 min

The City of Kigali covers 730 km² in three districts, Gasabo, Kicukiro and Nyarugenge, and had 1,745,555 residents at the 2022 census (City of Kigali). Yet only 27.9% of Rwanda's people lived in urban areas in 2022 (NISR). To spread growth beyond the capital, the City of Kigali's master plan names six secondary cities as "emerging secondary economic poles of growth" (Figure 1). What makes a place a town, and what is each town for?

Figure 1: Kigali and the six secondary cities named in the Kigali Master Plan 2050 (City of Kigali, 2020).

Definition

Urban settlement: a town or city, where most people work in industry and services rather than farming, and houses are close together. Urbanisation: the growth in the share of a country's people living in towns. Central business district (CBD): the commercial heart of a city, with offices, banks, large shops and the tallest buildings; in Kigali, the city centre in Nyarugenge.

Characteristics of urban centres

A large population living at high density.
Most people work in manufacturing, trade and services, not farming.
Planned or crowded land use: a CBD, residential zones, industrial areas and open spaces.
Infrastructure: tarmac roads, piped water, electricity, sewerage, telecommunications.
Services: hospitals, universities, banks, markets, hotels and government offices.
A mixed population, from many regions and backgrounds.

Functions of urban centres

Function	What the town does	African examples
Administrative	Seat of national or local government	Kigali; Abuja (built as Nigeria's capital); Addis Ababa (also host of the African Union)
Commercial	Trade, banking and markets	Lagos; Nairobi; Johannesburg (Lesson 4)
Industrial	Manufacturing and processing	Cairo; Johannesburg; the Kigali Special Economic Zone
Mining	Grew around a mine	Johannesburg (gold); Kolwezi in the DR Congo (copper and cobalt)
Port and transport	Sea, lake or rail and road junctions	Mombasa and Dar es Salaam (sea ports); Rubavu and Rusizi on Lake Kivu
Educational	Universities and schools	Huye, home of the University of Rwanda's oldest campus
Tourist	Hotels and services for visitors	Musanze, the gateway to Volcanoes National Park; Rubavu on Lake Kivu
Religious	Pilgrimage and worship	Kibeho (Nyaruguru); Touba in Senegal

Most towns have several functions at once: Kigali is administrative, commercial, industrial and a transport hub.

Definition

Secondary city: a city chosen to grow as a regional centre of jobs and services, so that not all growth goes to the capital. Rwanda's six (City of Kigali, 2020): Huye, Muhanga, Musanze, Nyagatare, Rubavu and Rusizi.

Worked example

Worked example 1: Kigali's density. Use the City of Kigali's figures to calculate the city's population density.

$\frac{1{,}745{,}555}{730} \approx 2{,}391$ people per km².
NISR gives 2,401 per km² for the City of Kigali; the small difference comes from rounding the area to 730 km².
That is almost five times Rwanda's national density of 503.

Worked example

Worked example 2: identifying functions. A town on Lake Kivu at the border with the DR Congo has hotels on the lake shore, a port for boats to other lake towns and a busy border crossing. Name three functions.

Tourist: hotels and beaches on Lake Kivu.
Port and transport: boats on the lake.
Commercial: cross-border trade.
This describes Rubavu, one of the six secondary cities.

Warning

A large village is not a town. What makes a place urban is not only its size but its functions and jobs: most people work in non-farm activities and the place provides services for a wider area.

Tip

Ask two questions about any town: what work do most people there do, and why do outsiders come to it? The answers are its functions. Always give each function a named town.

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Practice

Define urbanisation and a CBD.
Give four characteristics of urban centres.
Name Rwanda's six secondary cities.
State the main function of each: (a) Abuja, (b) Johannesburg when it was founded, (c) Mombasa, (d) Musanze.
Gasabo district covers 429.3 km² of the City of Kigali's 730 km². What percentage is that?
In 2022, 27.9% of Rwandans lived in urban areas (NISR). About how many people is that, out of 13,246,394?
Explain why the government wants secondary cities to grow, not only Kigali.

Show answersHide answers

Urbanisation: the growth in the share of people living in towns. CBD: the commercial centre of a city with offices, banks and large shops.
Any four: high population density; mainly non-farm jobs; infrastructure (roads, water, electricity); services (hospitals, banks, universities); planned land-use zones; mixed population.
Huye, Muhanga, Musanze, Nyagatare, Rubavu and Rusizi.
(a) administrative; (b) mining (gold); (c) port; (d) tourist (gateway to Volcanoes National Park).
$\frac{429.3}{730} \times 100 \approx 58.8\%$ .
$0.279 \times 13{,}246{,}394 \approx 3{,}695{,}744$ , about 3.7 million people.
To spread jobs, services and investment across the country; to reduce migration pressure, congestion and housing shortages in Kigali; and to give each region a centre for markets and services (City of Kigali, 2020: "balanced urban growth").

Sources and credits

City of Kigali: About the City of Kigali (area, districts, sectors, cells and 2022 population), read on 1 October 2026; Kigali Master Plan 2050, Main Report (final approved version, 15 August 2020), Box 1 (the six secondary cities). Facts used as stated.
National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), Fifth Rwanda Population and Housing Census 2022, Main Indicators Report: urban and rural shares.
Central business district and Urban area: Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0, adapted by Ganzaa.
Figure 1: drawn by Ganzaa; outline from Natural Earth, public domain.
Explanations, worked examples and exercises: written by Ganzaa.

This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.

1Characteristics of urban centres

2Functions of urban centres

Characteristics of urban centres

Functions of urban centres