Australia ranks as one of the three most urbanised societies in the world, and in 1971 some three-fifths of the country's population lived in metropolitan centres. Economic developments in the post-war period have increased the pace of urbanisation and, in relative terms, the rural population of Australia has been declining rapidly. Although, as noted in Chapter 1, the Aboriginal population is predominantly rural, in 1971 some 15 per cent of Aborigines (compared with 60 per cent of the total population) resided in major urban areas, defined as centres with populations in excess of 100,000 (1971 census; ABS, 1973, p. xiv). Because of the marginal economic status of Aborigines in rural areas, especially in settled Australia, it might have been expected that the ‘push’ to migrate to cities would have been stronger than for other Australians as a group. However, as Rowley (1971a, p. 362) has noted, certain influences act to discourage the migration of Aborigines to the cities: kinship ties and community loyalties attach Aborigines to rural areas, while greater difficulties (such as the sheer economic cost of migration) deter many poor potential migrants.