settlement

Dispersed settlements on the Dingle Peninsula in Country Kerry, Ireland. In hostile environments, where it is difficult to grow food and support many people, there are few settlements. Some communities depend on the sea for fishing or trade. Hence the pattern of settlement shows many dispersed (or isolated) homesteads, spread along the coast. On the higher ground, which shows up in purple here, the environment is even harsher, and there are no settlements.

The village of Islip, on Otmoor in Oxfordshire, England. Villages that become important are often those that have a good location for trade. The most accessible sites offer the best opportunities for trade. Islip is close to a number of other villages and hamlets. It provides services for these, such as a local school, church, and railway station, and it is well situated to draw on the skills of people from neighbouring settlements.

Scattered dwellings in the Dolomites, Italy. In mountainous areas there are few suitable sites for settlement. There are problems of flooding, low temperatures, and steep gradients. Settlements tend be to located on south-facing slopes, in areas that are free from flooding, and where there is some scope for farming or trading.

A village nestled among the Dolomite mountains of northern Italy. Mountains are inhospitable terrain for settlement, so sites are chosen carefully, with particular attention to flooding hazards, agricultural potential, and trading routes. In recent decades many of these mountain villages have become important tourist destinations.

Flat-roofed houses in a mountain village, Tibet. Flat roofs are widely used in arid climates where water-drainage is of minor importance.

Three basic shapes of rural settlements. Nucleated settlements have a defined centre, such as a market square or crossroads. Linear settlements, also known as ribbon settlements, are long and narrow and often grow up along a road. The buildings in a dispersed settlement tend to be scattered over a wide area with undeveloped land in between.

Collection of dwellings forming a community. There are many different types of settlement and most owe their origin to historical and geographical factors. The growth and development of a settlement is greatly influenced by its location, site, situation, and function. Human settlements can be identified as centres that function as marketplaces, administrative centres, and social and cultural meeting places serving surrounding hinterlands.

The first settlements probably developed between 13,000 and 10,000 years ago, when groups of nomadic hunter-gatherers in the Middle East adopted more settled ways of life and developed social organizations based on larger, more formal groups. These societies all developed in areas where food supplies such as fish and easily gathered food plants were readily available, and the social changes may have come about in part because some of the grain plants became more plentiful towards the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. The technology and social organizations of some of these more advanced societies served as a foundation for later farming settlements. It is thought that the first settlements in Britain probably originated as ‘base-camp’ sites for small clans or family groups of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who, in the course of a year, progressed round a circuit that formed the framework of their territory. Within this area they would have known where particular food resources could be located according to the season.

Siting of settlements The siting of the first settlements would have been influenced mainly by the physical features in a landscape that could fulfil a group's basic needs: food, water, and shelter. For example, a supply of fresh water would have been a prime necessity and so a site close to a spring or stream would have been chosen. Other requirements would have been some form of natural shelter or the availability of local materials for the construction of shelter, together with land suitable for growing crops and grazing animals, probably adjacent to woodlands that could supply fuel and construction materials. Many of the first settlements in Britain were strategically located on steep hillsides, which not only provided shelter from the prevailing winds but also, for defensive purposes, gave unimpeded views of the valley and its surrounding landscape. Others were sited at bridging points over rivers, particularly at the lowest crossing point – for example London and Exeter. Gap towns and settlements are located where valleys meet, and nodal settlements are those located at points where several routes meet.

Functions of settlements The three common functional classifications of settlements are rural settlements, urban settlements, and institutional settlements (that is, those established for a specific purpose). In addition, modern settlements are classified according to their socioeconomic functions. In this respect, there are eight main categories, namely: market towns, mining towns, manufacturing/industrial towns, route centres, administrative centres, cultural and religious centres, residential or commuter towns, and ports. Many present-day towns and cities will have originated as homogeneous settlements based on a specific function such as mining. As the settlement evolved, it will have taken on other functions, sometimes developing eventually into a vast urbanized area providing a multitude of functions. For example, market towns will have originated as centres for the sale and distribution of goods, while mining towns would have been located in areas that contained an ample supply of a natural resource such as coal or tin. Manufacturing and industrial towns would also have grown up around the sources of raw materials, often in conjunction with mining towns. Route centres, located at nodal points, would have developed from the transportation of the raw materials for processing, or the manufactured products to the marketing centres, and administrative centres would have evolved from settlements that were strategically well placed to combine several functions and provide administrative services on a regional or national basis. In recent years, outlying villages and hamlets located close to large cities have often become incorporated into the cities as suburbs, or developed independently as separate residential or commuter towns providing additional living space for the city's overspill. Although the original function of ports was the shipment of raw materials, goods, and passengers, with the development of national and international trade, such centres have naturally acquired additional functions.

Shape of settlements The shape of a settlement is mainly influenced by its geography and topography, and geographers recognize seven main locations or layouts to settlements. Isolated settlements usually consist of small groups of dwellings which, because of the nature of the terrain, are located a considerable distance from other settlements. Dispersed settlements are often found either along broken coastlines or in rural regions where a farming community may have developed without a central point. Green villages are settlements with their dwellings grouped around a village green, while in nucleated villages the buildings are grouped closely together around a centre or specific focal point – often the village church. Similarly, in a crossroads village the buildings are grouped around and along the intersection of a crossroads. Linear villages are often found in valleys, where the dwellings are strung out along the bottom or side of a valley, and planned villages are frequently adjacent to or near main roads and usually laid out around geometric road patterns, such as crescents and semicircles.

Spheres of influence Every type of settlement serves a specific area for functions such as administration, housing, health care, shopping, and recreation. The sum total of the spheres of influence of all the main services in a settlement represents the sphere of influence of the settlement itself. Settlements can be organized into hierarchies depending on the extent of their sphere of influence as follows: capital cities, regional centres, cities, large towns, small towns, villages, and hamlets. The sphere of influence of a settlement usually increases with size, but this is not always the case for large industrial conurbations with great density of population. In planning, areas covered by spheres of influence can be represented by geometric shapes. Although the simplest form of representation for a sphere might appear to be a circle, when grouped together circles either leave gaps or overlap, and so a better solution is the use of hexagons. A system for describing settlement patterns based on hexagons was devised by a German geographer, Walter Christaller (1893–1969). Since World War II his approach to the analysis of spacing and arrangement of central places has been used extensively as a planning tool in North America as well as in parts of Europe.

Growth of settlements The industrialization and urbanization of societies have resulted in dramatic changes in settlement types and development. In early 19th-century Britain, at the start of the Industrial Revolution, most people were still employed in agriculture and lived in small settlements in rural communities. Only 17% of the total population lived in urban areas. Over the next 150 years, there was a steady exodus of people from the rural areas, attracted by the higher wages of the urban areas, and consequently there was an enormous increase in the populations of all the major cities. For instance, the population of Birmingham grew from a population of 71,000 in 1801 to over 1 million by 1951. In recent years, widespread unemployment has exacerbated this drift to urban areas with the result that many major cities, not only in this country but across the world, have become saturated with an ever-expanding population in search of work, with the result that job vacancies, housing, and health and welfare services are insufficient to meet the demands made on them. Consequently, along with unemployment, homelessness has become one of the major social problems of the late 20th century, and from it new and less desirable forms of settlements have developed – such as the cardboard cities and shanty towns that are to be found in many of the world's major cities.