A settlement hierarchy is a way of arranging settlements into a hierarchy based upon their population or some other criteria. The term is used by landscape historians and in the National Curriculum for England. The term is also used in the planning system for the UK and for some other countries such as Ireland, India and Switzerland. The term was used without comment by the geographer Brian Roberts in 1972.
What is the result of a settlement hierarchy?
The result is a settlement hierarchy. A settlement hierarchy is found by putting settlements in a region or country into a rank order either by population or type and range of services. As you move up the settlement hierarchy the size of the settlement increases, as does the population and the range of services available.
How can we categorise settlements according to their size?
We can categorise settlements according to their size and shape. The result is a settlement hierarchy. A settlement hierarchy is found by putting settlements in a region or country into a rank order either by population or type and range of services.
What is settlement in geography?
- Internet Geography What is a settlement? A settlement is a place where people live. It can range in size from an isolated dwelling to a million city. The site of a settlement is the location where it is built. It describes the physical nature of where a settlement is located.
Why is the term'settlement hierarchy'problematic?
This term, used primarily in the United Kingdom, is problematic for some people since a hierarchy can sometimes imply that the things on top are better than things on the bottom. Keep in mind that this isn't an actual goal of the settlement hierarchy.
What is the hierarchy of settlements by population?
A settlement hierarchy is a system of ranking population centers by their population, physical size, and expected number of available services, with population centers being referred to as settlements and a hierarchy referring to a ranking of items.
What is hierarchy in urban settlement?
The hierarchy of urban settlements is arranging them vertically from top to bottom based on the size of the urban population.
What is the meaning of settlement in geography?
Settlement: is a place where people live. A settlement may be as small as a single house in a remote area or as a large as a mega city (a city with over 10 million residents). Site: is the actual location of a settlement on the earth and is composed of the physical characteristics of the landscape specific to the area.
Why is there a hierarchy of cities?
Where they stand on the hierarchy depends on many factors, the main ones being population, the number of services a settlement has and its sphere of influence. The most obvious way of deciding where a settlement ranks on the urban hierarchy is by using the population of that settlement.
What are the 4 types of settlements?
The four main types of settlements are urban, rural, compact, and dispersed.
Who gave the concept of settlement hierarchy?
Settlement hierarchy in the German planning system The German planning system is based on the Central Place Theory developed by Walter Christaller in the 1930s and first applied in the Nazi Era, especially in Poland.
What are the 3 types of settlement?
Settlement Types There are generally three types of settlements: compact, semi-compact, and dispersed. Each is based on its population density.
What are the reasons for the hierarchy of settlements and services?
Large towns, cities and conurbations will provide low and high-order services such as leisure centres, chain stores and hospitals. Larger settlements and conurbations have a much larger sphere of influence than smaller ones. This means they attract people from a wider area because of the facilities they offer.
What is hierarchy of rural settlement?
The hierarchy among rural settlements is characterised by their interdependence using gravity model and the central settlements are identified according to the forms of settlement clusters with their respective three spatial patterns (i.e., single-centre, dual-core and linear).
What is at the top of the urban hierarchy?
For example, in the United States, the city at the top of the urban hierarchy is New York, which has the country's largest population; is a major global financial, transportation, and cultural center; and offers a wide variety of social and economic services.
What are the types of urban settlement?
Types of Urban SettlementsTown. A town is the closest term to a rural settlement. ... City. Cities are much larger in size and population than towns. ... Conurbation. Conurbation is applied to large areas of urban settlement that are combined. ... Megalopolis.
What is settlement hierarchy?
e. A settlement hierarchy is a way of arranging settlements into a hierarchy based upon their population or some other criteria. The term is used by landscape historians and in the National Curriculum for England.
How does a settlement affect its hierarchy?
A settlement's population size, its geographic area, its status and the availability of services can all affect this hierarchy. Position in a settlement hierarchy can also depend on the sphere of influence. This is how far people will travel to use the services in the settlement: if people travel further the town becomes more important and ranks higher in the settlement hierarchy.
What is the German planning system?
The German planning system is based on the Central Place Theory developed by Walter Christaller in the 1930s and first applied in the Nazi Era, especially in Poland. Every settlement is categorized by function: highly central cities Oberzentrum [ de] (e.g. Hamburg, with speciality clinics for tropical diseases), middle central cities Mittelzentrum [ de] (for periodic functions e.g. Homburg (Saar) with major schools (starting at 5th grade)) and basic central towns Grundzentrum [ de] /Unterzentrum (e.g. Illingen with basic doctors and Supermarket). The number of inhabitants is less important: thus a city such as Kaiserslautern (100,000 people) can be a highly specialized city, because it is a centre for the surrounding rural area.
What is the name of the city with a population of over one billion?
Eperopolis - incorporated gigacities in excess of one billion population, in which the entire continental region is an unbroken continuum of human settlements.
What is a Regiopolis?
Regiopolis or City - a large city with a large population and many services. The population is less than one million but over 300,000 people.
How many people live in a settlement?
Throughout most of human history, very few settlements could support a population greater than 150 people.
What is a village?
Village or Tribe - a village is a human settlement or community that is larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town. The population of a village varies; the average population can range in the hundreds. Anthropologists regard the number of about 150 specimens for tribes as the maximum for a functioning human group.
What is a settlement hierarchy?
A hierarchy is a ranking of items. So a settlement hierarchy is a ranking of settlements. This term, used primarily in the United Kingdom, is problematic for some people since a hierarchy can sometimes imply that the things on top are better than things on the bottom.
What is an isolated place?
isolated place, or a settlement with only a few households ; hamlet, or small places with populations of 100 people or less; village, or slightly bigger places that have a few hundred people; small town, or a slightly larger place that has a population of between 1,000 and 20,000 people;
What is the name of the pyramids that organize information about people?
As you may have noticed, we organize a lot of things into pyramids (the food pyramid, the exercise pyramid, etc). What if we need to organize information about places where people live by size and number of services? There's a pyramid for that too. It's called the settlement hierarchy.
What does the bottom layer of the pyramid represent?
The bottom layers have fewer people and fewer services, but are more common. As you move up the pyramid, each layer represents a settlement that is larger in size and population, but which occurs less frequently. The layers, from bottom to top, are:
What is the result of grouping and classifying settlements according to their size and shape?
If we group and classify a number of settlements according to their size and shape, the result is settlement hierarchy.
What are the characteristics of a settlement?
Settlement characteristics. Settlements are varied in size, type and location. More can be learnt about a settlement by studying its size, placement in the landscape, and its situation in relation to surrounding features. Part of. Geography.
What are the services that settlements provide?
The number of services that a settlement provides increases with settlement size. Small settlements will only provide low-order services such as a post offices, doctors and newsagents. Large towns, cities and conurbations will provide low and high-order services such as leisure centres, chain stores and hospitals.
Which has a larger sphere of influence?
Larger settlements and conurbations have a much larger sphere of influence than smaller ones. This means they attract people from a wider area because of the facilities they offer. Cities such as London have a global sphere of influence, whereas a small hamlet or village may only have a sphere of influence of a couple of kilometres.
What is a settlement?
A settlement is a place where people live. It can range in size from an isolated dwelling to a million city. The site of a settlement is the location where it is built. It describes the physical nature of where a settlement is located. Factors such as water supply, defence, quality of soil, building materials, climate, ...
What factors were taken into account when establishing settlements in the past?
Factors such as water supply, defence, quality of soil, building materials, climate, shelter and defence were all taken into consideration when establishing settlements in the past. The situation of a settlement is the description of the settlement in relation to physical features around it and other settlements.
Summary
A settlement hierarchy is a way of arranging settlements into a hierarchy based upon their population or some other criteria. The term is used by landscape historians and in the National Curriculum for England. The term is also used in the planning system for the UK and for some other countries such as Ireland, India, and Switzerland. The term was used without comment by the geographer Bria…
Overview
In Europe, centuries-old settlements were surrounded by farmland and tended not to be wider than 30 minutes' walk from one end to the other, with wealthier people monopolizing the "town center", and poorer people living on the town's outskirts or nearby countryside (the "sphere of influence"). With the advent of decentralization technologies (e.g., bicycles, trains, cars, etc.), American settlements reversed this trend before reaching their saturation point, with vast farmla…
Example of a settlement hierarchy
In this example, a roadhouse is at the lowest level while the ecumenopolis is at the top with the greatest number of residents:
This is only an example, and in other contexts, the population criteria for each category of settlement might be different.
Note: This settlement hierarchy is adapted from the work of Konstantinos Apostolos Doxiadis fo…
Settlement hierarchy by country
The position of a settlement in the hierarchy is intended to inform decisions about new developments, such as housing. Rather than define the hierarchy by population, an alternative way to construct the hierarchy is based on the services that are available within each settlement. Settlements are described as "level 1", "level 2", etc. rather than using terms such as village or town. The Government planning statement (PPS3) does not specifically mention "settlement hie…
See also
• Konstantinos Apostolos Doxiadis
• Ekistics
• Green transport hierarchy
• Street hierarchy
External links
• Why Cities Are Where They Are?