Full Answer
What is a settlement pattern in geography?
A settlement pattern is the way a population disperses over a particular area. Settlement patterns are defined by size, shape and population size. Topography and climate are the two major influences on settlement patterns. Linear settlement, scattered settlement, compact settlement and ordered settlement are the most common settlement patterns.
What are the different types of dispersed patterns of settlement?
Dispersed, linear and nucleated are the most common. A dispersed pattern is where isolated buildings are spread out across an area, usually separated by a few hundred metres with no central focus. It is typically an area containing buildings rather than a single settlement. The population is sparsely distributed in a dispersed settlement.
What are the factors that influence settlement patterns?
Settlement patterns are influenced by the price of land, available transportation infrastructure, public policy initiatives, and social and ecological processes that are not necessarily quantifiable. Settlement patterns are partly influenced by population pressure.
What is the difference between linear and scattered settlement patterns?
Linear settlements occur along major highways or rivers, and are long and narrow in shape. Scattered settlement patterns are common in rural areas. This pattern occurs when homes are located significant distances apart, and there is no central cluster of homes or businesses.
What is population settlement?
In geography, statistics and archaeology, a settlement, locality or populated place is a community in which people live. The complexity of a settlement can range from a minuscule number of dwellings grouped together to the largest of cities with surrounding urbanized areas.
What is the settlement pattern?
settlement patterns. Definition English: A settlement pattern refers to the way that buildings and houses are distributed in a rural settlement. Settlement patterns are of interest to geographers, historians, and anthropologists for the insight they offer in how a community has developed over time.
What are the 3 types of settlement patterns?
There are generally three types of settlements: compact, semi-compact, and dispersed.
What are the main patterns of settlement and population?
There are three main settlement patterns: nucleated, linear and dispersed.
What are 4 types of settlement?
The four main types of settlements are urban, rural, compact, and dispersed.
What is the importance of settlement pattern?
Settlements and the patterns they etch on Earth's surface provide not only information on current economic, political, and social conditions, but also a historical record of past conditions. Today's settlement patterns provide information about past settlement processes and land-use patterns.
What are the 5 types of settlement patterns?
There are 5 types of settlement classified according to their pattern, these are, isolated, dispersed, nucleated, and linear.
What are 2 main types of settlement?
Settlements can broadly be divided into two types – rural and urban.
What is an example of a settlement?
An example of a settlement is when divorcing parties agree on how to split up their assets. An example of a settlement is when you buy a house and you and the sellers sign all the documents to officially transfer the property. An example of settlement is when the colonists came to America.
What are 3 types of population distribution?
A population can also be described in terms of the distribution, or dispersion, of the individuals that make it up. Individuals may be distributed in a uniform, random, or clumped pattern.
What is settlement explain its types with examples?
There are 5 types of settlement classified according to their pattern, these are, isolated, dispersed, nucleated, and linear. ... In a nucleated or compact settlement, the buildings are clustered, linked by roads, and the settlement itself may have a nearly circular or irregular shape.
What is population and settlement geography?
In the expression 'population geography', the term 'population' signifies the subject matter and 'geography' refers to the perspective of investigation. Population geography implies the investigation into human covering of the earth and its various facets with reference to physical and cultural environment.
What are the 5 types of settlements?
There are 5 types of settlement classified according to their pattern, these are, isolated, dispersed, nucleated, and linear.
What are settlement pattern studies?
The study of settlement patterns in archaeology involves a set of techniques and analytical methods to examine the cultural past of a region. The method allows examination of sites in their contexts, as well as interconnectedness and change across time.
What are the 2 types of settlement?
Settlement is a place where people live and carry out various economic activities on a relatively permanent basis. It can be divided into two types: rural settlement and urban settlement. The two types of settlement are differentiated by their size, density of population and employment pattern.
What is the meaning of settlement geography?
Referring to Stone (1960), settlement geography is. the description and analysis of the distribution of buildings by which people attach themselves to the land. Further, that the geography of settling designate the action of erecting buildings in order to occupy an area temporarily or permanently.
What is a settlement pattern?
A settlement pattern re fers to the shape of the settlement as seen from above. The shapes of early settlements were influenced by the surrounding landscape. They were also shaped by other factors such as who owned the land and whether the land was good for building on or not. Some examples of settlement patterns include, nucleated settlements, linear settlements and dispersed settlements .
What is a dispersed settlement?
Dispersed settlements are ones where the houses are spread out over a wide area. They are often the homes of farmers and can be found in rural areas. Example of a dispersed settlement: Brülisau, Switzerland is an example of a linear settlement. Brülisau in Switzerland is an example of a dispersed village.
Why did early settlers form villages?
Early settlers forming villages would often live together for safety, for friendship, and to share services. These early settlements would take on distinctive patterns based on the shape of the land around them. Here we can see some examples of different settlement patterns.
What is an example of a dispersed village?
Brülisau in Switzerland is an example of a dispersed village.
What are the five settlement patterns?
There are five main settlement patterns: compact settlement, scattered settlement, ordered settlement, linear settlement and nodal settlement. A settlement pattern is the way a population disperses over a particular area. Settlement patterns are defined by size, shape and population size.
Where are compact settlement patterns found?
Compact settlement patterns are most often found in cities. Despite the name, compact settlements can be very large if the population is concentrated in one area, Ordered settlement patterns occur when homes are designed on a grid pattern. Most suburban areas are examples of ordered settlement patterns. A nodal settlement pattern is the only ...
Where do linear settlements occur?
Linear settlements occur along major highways or rivers, and are long and narrow in shape. Scattered settlement patterns are common in rural areas. This pattern occurs when homes are located significant distances apart, and there is no central cluster of homes or businesses. Compact settlement patterns are most often found in cities.
Why is spatial distribution important?
The spatial distribution of populations and settlements across a country and their interconnectivity and accessibility from urban areas are important for delivering healthcare, distributing resources and economic development. However, existing spatially explicit population data across Africa are generally based on outdated, ...
How does geography affect development?
Geography plays a significant role in the development process [1]. Three spatial features influence the economic development of a region: the density (e.g. agglomeration, scale economies), the distance (e.g. spatial mobility and access) and division (e.g. the spatial integration of economies). Improving access to people and markets is a key driver for development and plays an important role in poverty reduction.
How to provide reliable spatial access?
To provide reliable, contemporary and detailed measures of spatial access, transportation data must be combined with accurate and high resolution information on population and settlement distributions. This article describes the first iteration of an ongoing project entitled AfriPop ( www.afripop.org ), aimed at the detailed and contemporary modelling of population distribution across Africa. The modelling framework described here uses routinely collected data and semi-automated methods that can easily incorporate new data as it becomes available. Different sources of errors and uncertainties are associated with the population datasets described here, therefore, a future priority will be to incorporate uncertainty explicitly in future iterations, taking large area population distribution mapping a step further than existing approaches. Uncertainties relate to (i) the input data (ii) temporal projection and (iii) the modelling procedure used. Uncertainties associated with input data such as census data can be important, especially in low income regions where misreporting errors may be frequent [35], [36]. In addition, growth rates can vary substantially within countries, introducing uncertainties when using national estimates, and are dependent upon the urban-rural definition used. Future work will consider more sophisticated handling of these components of temporal uncertainty and its propagation through the projections. Finally, the dasymetric modelling method used here (i.e. the use of land cover data for redistributing populations) also introduces uncertainties [17]. Future iterations will focus on improvements to modelling methods, through testing alternative and promising statistical modelling methods such as boosted regression trees [37].
What countries have high resolution census data?
High resolution census data were available for three countries in Africa: Ghana, Swaziland and Kenya. Kenya data were also available at enumeration area level (finer than level 5) for 58 of the 69 Kenyan districts. Also obtained was a population density map of Namibia at 1 km spatial resolution (for details on the Namibia density map, see description on www.afripop.org ). A table summarizing the spatial resolution, year and source of all data used is available on www.afripop.org.
What is a pattern in a settlement?
Patterns refer to the shape of a settlement, not its density. It's easier to define the compact or semi-compact settlements, as the dispersed settlements are usually too spread out to define a shape. There are many more patterns, but the most common rural settlement patterns are:
Which settlement has the highest density of population?
Compact settlements have the highest density of population. They have homes stacked together, often touching at the sides or stacked in multi-family buildings. Streets tend to be narrow between the rows of homes. We often find this type of arrangement in highly fertile floodplains.
What is a semi compact settlement?
Semi-compact types are clusters of houses, also called hamlets, not as tightly placed as compact settlements, but showing a clear grouping and boundary. Dispersed settlements are scattered throughout the rural landscape with farmers building homes directly on their farmland.
What are the factors that make up a dispersed settlement?
Dispersed settlements are the result of many different factors, including the needs of the farm to have permanent attendants, open grasslands, hilly terrains, and relative security that raiders will not attack it. Patterns refer to the shape of a settlement, not its density.
What type of settlements are built around a lake?
We also find this in settlements built all at once. Circular or semi-circular: These types of settlements are often built partway around or completely surrounding a lake or large pond. Circular settlements are also built for defense with a protective wall around the perimeter.
What are cultural factors?
Cultural factors, including how people traditionally use the land, ideas of ownership, the crops they choose to grow, social hierarchy, and transportation availability.
Where are linear settlements found?
Linear: These settlements are built in a line of houses. Often, they are found in a long valley, but they can also stretch out along a roadway or riverbank.
What are the patterns of rural settlement?
Patterns of rural settlement indicate much about the history, economy, society, and minds of those who created them as well as about the land itself. The essential design of rural activity in the United States bears a strong family resemblance to that of other neo-European lands, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, or tsarist Siberia —places that have undergone rapid occupation and exploitation by immigrants intent upon short-term development and enrichment. In all such areas, under novel social and political conditions and with a relative abundance of territory and physical resources, ideas and institutions derived from a relatively stable medieval or early modern Europe have undergone major transformation. Further, these are nonpeasant countrysides, alike in having failed to achieve the intimate symbiosis of people and habitat, the humanized rural landscapes characteristic of many relatively dense, stable, earthbound communities in parts of Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.
What are the characteristics of American settlement?
Another special characteristic of American settlement, one that became obvious only by the mid-20th century, is the convergence of rural and urban modes of life. The farmsteads—and rural folk in general—have become increasingly urbanized, and agricultural operations have become more automated, while the metropolis grows more gelatinous, unfocused, and pseudo-bucolic along its margins.
How were townships laid out?
Townships were laid out as blocks, each six by six miles in size, oriented with the compass directions . Thirty-six sections, each one square mile, or 640 acres (260 hectares), in size, were designated within each township; and public roads were established along section lines and, where needed, along half-section lines. At irregular intervals, offsets in survey lines and roads were introduced to allow for the Earth’s curvature. Individual property lines were coincident with, or parallel to, survey lines, and this pervasive rectangularity generally carried over into the geometry of fields and fences or into the townsites later superimposed upon the basic rural survey.
How were farms connected to towns?
Successions of such farms were connected with one another and with the towns by means of a dense, usually rectangular lattice of roads, largely unimproved at the time. The hamlets, villages, and smaller cities were arrayed at relatively regular intervals, with size and affluence determined in large part by the presence and quality of rail service or status as the county seat. But, among people who have been historically rural, individualistic, and antiurban in bias, many services normally located in urban places might be found in rustic settings. Thus, much retail business was transacted by means of itinerant peddlers, while small shops for the fabrication, distribution, or repair of various items were often located in isolated farmsteads, as were many post offices.
How much land did farms have in the 1980s?
By the late 1980s, for example, when the average farm size had surpassed 460 acres, farms containing 2,000 or more acres accounted for almost half of all farmland and 20 percent of the cropland harvested, even though they comprised less than 3 percent of all farms.
What is the impression of the settled portion of the American landscape, rural or urban, is one of disorder and inco?
The overall impression of the settled portion of the American landscape, rural or urban, is one of disorder and incoherence, even in areas of strict geometric survey. The individual landscape unit is seldom in visual harmony with its neighbour, so that, however sound in design or construction the single structure may be, the general effect is untidy. These attributes have been intensified by the acute individualism of the American, vigorous speculation in land and other commodities, a strongly utilitarian attitude toward the land and the treasures above and below it, and government policy and law. The landscape is also remarkable for its extensive transportation facilities, which have greatly influenced the configuration of the land.
How did pre-European settlements affect the United States?
Although the land that now constitutes the United States was occupied and much affected by diverse Indian cultures over many millennia, these pre-European settlement patterns have had virtually no impact upon the contemporary nation—except locally, as in parts of New Mexico. A benign habitat permitted a huge contiguous tract of settled land to materialize across nearly all the eastern half of the United States and within substantial patches of the West. The vastness of the land, the scarcity of labour, and the abundance of migratory opportunities in a land replete with raw physical resources contributed to exceptional human mobility and a quick succession of ephemeral forms of land use and settlement. Human endeavours have greatly transformed the landscape, but such efforts have been largely destructive. Most of the pre-European landscape in the United States was so swiftly and radically altered that it is difficult to conjecture intelligently about its earlier appearance.
What are the factors that influence settlement patterns?
Settlement patterns are influenced by the price of land, available transportation infrastructure, public policy initiatives, and social and ecological processes that are not necessarily quantifiable.
Why is settlement pattern important?
The settlement pattern makes clear why good stratigraphy was obtained in what is normally a difficult context, that of a stratified series of villages. The reason is that, once abandoned, structures were never disturbed . Burials within the structures were also never drastically disturbed; abandoned houses were abandoned household cemeteries.
Why is the division of open land areas into prototypical areas important?
Furthermore, the division of open land areas into prototypical areas also makes it possible to evaluate the potential of forests, soil, and peat bogs to serve as carbon sinks. To maintain or enhance this carbon storage capacity, measures to protect ecosystems and improve soil are necessary.
What are the different types of settlements?
There are innumerable geometric possibilities relating to local terrain and location (such as road, canal, riverbank, or spring-line settlements), political conditions, or genesis of the settlements: colonial villages often had defensive functions expressed in linear or circular forms (Figure 2 ). The simpler hamlet clusters which characterized settlement in poorer more difficult agricultural environments were often associated with kinship groups, organic growth of settlements over long periods of time, as well as tribal roots of landownership in the early Middle Ages.
How does settlement affect the environment?
Settlement patterns are partly influenced by population pressure. In urban areas, there is a tendency for the slums to develop in areas which have been designated as flood-prone zones. Settlement on steep slopes as well as cultivation on such lands also tends to increase the vulnerability of the community to landslides. This also increases possibility of increased rates of soil erosion particularly where overgrazing and deforestation have reduced vegetation cover. Modification of river channels through channel straightening can lead to rapid flow of water into streams, thus promoting rapid increase in water level in rivers. Flooding of the low-lying areas often follows this.
Why is central place theory important?
The quantitative revolution's interest in central place theory stemmed largely from its potential as an explanation of settlement patterns – of why settlements appeared on agricultural landscapes in the observed locations and sizes, and offering particular combinations of goods. From time to time, the same theory has been used for a quite different purpose, as a basis for planning new landscapes, when decisions on locations, sizes, and perhaps offerings of goods are in the hands of planners. For example, planners were required to make decisions about the locations of settlements during the draining of the Dutch polders in the mid-twentieth century.
