Abstract
Over the years, there has been a consensual theoretical understanding of how settlements have developed. However, in spite of this, countries globally have categorized and delimited their settlements according to their own definition. This has resulted in there being limited comparable knowledge on how settlements have actually developed and advanced to form regions. This paper aims to provide insight into how South Africa has categorized its settlement regions (Municipalities) over the past twenty one-years, paying particular attention to the metropolitan region. The research utilized a critical evaluation technique to investigate the evolving definition of settlements and the criteria utilized to categorize administrative regions in South Africa. The findings illustrated that there is a lack of understanding of what settlement regions entail and the negative impact it has on the implementation of development policy. Lessons from this study contribute to the broader understanding of how settlement regions can be categorized and the policy mishaps that can be avoided.
