Settlement patterns

This presentation titled on Settlement patterns.

1. Settlement Patterns D.G. Nishavi Kaushalya Ranasinghe B.A. ( Hons ) Geography Department of Geography and Environmental Management Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka

2. What is a settlement pattern? A settlement pattern refers to the way that buildings and houses are distributed in a rural settlement . Western Pannonia

3. Isolated This refers to the individual building, usually found in an area of extreme physical difficulty where the natural resources are insufficient to maintain more than few inhabitants. Ex: The Amazon rainforest where tribes live in a communal home called as maloca.

4. Clustered A settlement pattern identified by its dense developed around a central church or public place. A clustered rural settlement is different in that there is a distribution of farmstead and dwellings in an agricultural setting or around a trade route or main trail in a nucleated manner.

5. Factors for clustering Wet point (water sources) Defense Social relationship Economic factors Religious aspects Good transport links (road, rail, river ) Nearby natural resources e.g. fuel

6. Dispersed 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. Settlement is described as dispersed when there is a scatter of individual farms and houses across an area. There are no nucleation present or they are so small that they consist only of two or three buildings forming a hamlet. Ex: Brülisau , Switzerland

7. Factors for dispersal Large scale agriculture. Relief difficulties. Less of transport facilities. Severe weather conditions e.g. extremely hot or cold or wet . Floodplain or coastal area that is vulnerable to flooding. Only limited natural resources No job prospects No nearby schools and hospitals No electricity supply

8. Nucleated Nucleated settlement is common in many rural parts of the world where buildings have been grouped closely together for economic, social or defensive purpose. In Britain where recent evidence suggest that nucleation only took place after the year 1000, villages were surrounded by their farmland, where the inhabitants grew crops and grazed animals in order to be self – sufficient; this led to an unplanned and variable spacing of villages usually 3 – 5 km apart.

9. Ex: Little Thetford in England.

10. Loose – knit These are similar to nucleated settlements except that the buildings are more spread out, possibly due to take space taken up by individual farms which are still found within the village itself.

11. Linear and ribbon Linear settlements are settlements where the buildings are constructed in lines, often next to a geographical feature like a lake shore, a river or following a road.  Street villages – planned, linear villages were common in medieval England. Upland linear settlements also development on long, narrow, flood avoidance sites. Ex: a long raised beaches of Western Scotland and on river terraces as in London

12. In the Netherlands, Malaysia and Thailand houses have been built along cannels and waterways. Linear settlements can identify as natural and man made. Natural : River, Coastal line Man made : Road, Railway, Channel Champlain, Quebec, Canada is an example of a linear settlement.

13. Ring and green villages Ring villages are found in many parts of Sub – Saharan African and the rainforest. Houses were built around a central area which was left open for tribal meeting and commercial life. In Kenya the masai built their houses around an area into which their cattle were driven for production during most nights.

14. In England many villages have been built around a central green. If the green patch is available in around the circular or in the circular is known as green village. Without any green patch is called ring village.

15. Maintain a green patch around the settlement/village is because of restrict the expansion of the village. Mostly can identify in England. Maintain a green patch middle of the village for, Livestock Non – timbering products (honey, medicine) Ring villages mostly can identify within tribal groups. They settled like that for the protection and easy communication. Ex: Massai

16. Planned settlement Although many early settlements are planned the apparently random shape of many British villages appears to suggest that they were not . Ex: Brazilia in Brazil Mahaweli settlement

17. Thank You