Where and why did cities first develop, and what site and situation factors drive urbanization today?
Topic 6.1 Origin and Influences of Urbanization: explain the processes of urbanization and suburbanization, and the site and situation factors that drive the growth and decline of cities.
A focused answer to AP Human Geography Topic 6.1, explaining the processes of urbanization and suburbanization, and the site and situation factors and economic forces that drive the growth, decline, and spread of cities.
Reviewed by: AI editorial process; not yet individually human-reviewed
Have a quick question? Jump to the Q&A page
Jump to a section
What this topic is asking
Topic 6.1 opens Unit 6 by explaining why cities exist and grow. The College Board wants you to explain the process of urbanization (the rising share of people living in cities) and suburbanization (the spread of people and activity to the urban edge), and to identify the site and situation factors and economic processes that drive cities to grow, spread, or decline. The skill is to connect a city's location and economy to its growth pattern.
Urbanization and suburbanization
The unit's two core processes describe how urban populations grow and spread.
Historically, agricultural surplus first freed people from farming and allowed early cities, and the Industrial Revolution (Topic 7.1) then concentrated jobs in factory cities, driving rapid urbanization. In more developed countries, mass car ownership and highways later powered suburbanization.
Site and situation
Two complementary ideas explain where cities locate.
Both can change in importance: a defensive site mattered most before modern weapons, while a situation on global trade routes drives growth today.
Growth, decline, and economic drivers
Cities are not static.
- Growth follows economic opportunity: industrialization, trade, and services pull migrants to cities, raising the urban share of population.
- Suburbanization follows cheaper edge land, cars, highways, and the search for space, spreading the urban area outward and sometimes hollowing the center.
- Decline can follow the loss of a city's economic base, such as deindustrialization in old manufacturing cities, which lose jobs and population.
These processes connect to globalization (Topic 6.3), the size and ranking of cities (Topic 6.4), and the internal land-use models of Topic 6.5.
Why this matters for the exam
Topic 6.1 supplies the vocabulary for the whole unit: globalization and world cities (6.3), city size and ranking (6.4), internal structure (6.5), and urban challenges (6.10) all build on the growth processes and the site-situation distinction set out here. FRQs ask you to define urbanization, explain a site or situation factor, or explain a driver of suburbanization, so practice linking a city's location and economy to its growth.
Try this
Q1. Identify whether a city's location at a natural harbour with access to ocean trade is a site or a situation factor. [Recall]
- Cue. The harbour itself is a site feature, but access to ocean trade routes is a situation factor; situation is location relative to other places, here global markets.
Q2. Explain one economic process that has driven suburbanization in more developed countries. [Short explanation]
- Cue. Mass car ownership and highways, combined with cheaper edge land and rising central-city costs, let households and businesses move outward, spreading the urban area into the suburbs.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of College Board exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
AP 2019 (style)1 marksThe growth of a city because its location at the junction of two rivers gives it access to trade routes is an example of the influence of: (A) site. (B) situation. (C) suburbanization. (D) the rank-size rule.Show worked answer →
A stimulus-style multiple choice item. The correct answer is (B).
Situation refers to a place's location relative to other places, such as access to trade routes, markets, or resources; a junction of trade routes is a situation factor. Site (A) refers to the physical characteristics of the place itself (terrain, water supply, climate). Suburbanization (C) is the spread of population to the urban edge; the rank-size rule (D) describes city sizes within a system.
The exam reward is separating situation (relative location) from site (absolute physical features).
AP 2021 (style)3 marksCities grow and change over time. (A) Define urbanization. (B) Explain ONE site factor that influenced the original location of many early cities. (C) Explain ONE economic process that has driven suburbanization in more developed countries.Show worked answer →
A 3-point define-explain FRQ.
(A) Define (1 point): urbanization is the process by which an increasing share of a population comes to live in cities and towns, and by which the built-up urban area expands.
(B) Explain (1 point): a site factor such as a defensible hill, a reliable water supply, or fertile surrounding land let early cities feed and protect a concentrated population, so settlements clustered where the physical site supported them.
(C) Explain (1 point): the spread of cars, highways, and cheaper edge land let households and businesses move outward, while rising central-city costs and the desire for space pushed growth to the suburbs, producing suburbanization.
Markers reward an accurate definition, a real site factor, and a genuine economic driver of suburban growth.
Related dot points
- Topic 6.2 Cities Across the World: explain how the attributes and influences of urbanization vary across the world, including differences between more and less developed countries.
A focused answer to AP Human Geography Topic 6.2, explaining how the level and pace of urbanization vary across the world, the contrast between more and less developed countries, and the role of megacities and metacities.
- Topic 6.3 Cities and Globalization: explain how globalization influences urban patterns and processes, including the role of world cities and the urban hierarchy of global influence.
A focused answer to AP Human Geography Topic 6.3, explaining how globalization shapes urban patterns, the role of world cities as centers of global economic command, and the global urban hierarchy.
- Topic 6.5 The Internal Structure of Cities: explain the models that describe the internal structure of cities, including the Burgess, Hoyt, multiple-nuclei, and regional urban models.
A focused answer to AP Human Geography Topic 6.5, explaining the Burgess concentric zone, Hoyt sector, multiple-nuclei, and galactic city models, and the Latin American, Southeast Asian, and African city models.
- Topic 6.6 Density and Land Use: explain how density, bid-rent, zoning, and infill shape urban land use, and analyze the effects of low-density development and sprawl.
A focused answer to AP Human Geography Topic 6.6, explaining how residential density, the bid-rent curve, zoning, and infill shape urban land use, and the effects of suburban sprawl and low-density development.
- Topic 1.5 Human-Environmental Interaction: explain how the environment shapes human activity and how humans modify the environment, contrasting environmental determinism with possibilism.
A focused answer to AP Human Geography Topic 1.5, covering how the environment influences human activity and how people modify the environment, the contrast between environmental determinism and possibilism, sustainability, carrying capacity, and natural resources.
Sources & how we know this
- AP Human Geography Course and Exam Description — College Board (2020)