Settlements

A settlement or human settlement refers to a place where

people live. It can range in size and complexity from a single dwelling to a
large city with extensive urbanized areas. Settlements are fundamental to
human existence, providing shelter, fostering communities, and serving as
centers for economic, social, and cultural activities.
Primary Classification: Human settlements are broadly categorized into two main types

Rural Settlement:

• Characteristics: Typically smaller in population and less densely populated.

• Economic Activities: Dominated by primary activities such as agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, forestry,
and mining.

• Social Relations: Often characterized by intimate social relationships due to less mobility.

• Examples: Hamlets, villages, small towns, and the countryside.

Urban Settlement:

• Characteristics: Generally compact, larger in size, and more densely populated.

• Economic Activities: Engaged primarily in secondary (manufacturing) and tertiary (services, trade, transport,
administration) activities.

• Social Relations: Life is often more complex and fast-paced, with more formal social relations.

• Examples: Towns, cities, metropolitan areas, conurbations (merged cities), and megalopolises (super
metropolitan regions).
The Census of India classifies an area as "urban" if it falls into one of two
categories:
Rural Areas: All areas that
Statutory Towns: These are places that have a formal municipal body, do not qualify as urban
regardless of their population size or other demographic characteristics. They (neither Statutory Towns
are officially designated as urban by the concerned State/Union Territory nor Census Towns) are
Government under a law. Examples include: considered Rural Areas by
the Census of India.
• Municipal Corporations

• Municipalities

• Cantonment Boards

• Notified Town Area Committees

Census Towns: These are places that satisfy all three of the following
demographic criteria simultaneously:

• A minimum population of 5,000.

• At least 75% of the male main working population engaged in non-
agricultural pursuits.
• A population density of at least 400 persons per square kilometer.
 Types, patterns and morphology of rural settlements

The pattern of a rural settlement refers to the geometric

shape and arrangement of houses, streets, and other structures.

This classification focuses on how buildings are arranged within a

settlement.

Morphology, in general, refers to the study of form and

structure. In linguistics, it examines the internal structure of
words and how they are formed. In the context of settlements,
morphology refers to the spatial arrangement and physical
characteristics of buildings, streets, and other elements within a
settlement.

Morphology = Layout
Rural settlement: characteristics of the rural settlement:

• The majority of the rural population engages in agriculture, animal

husbandry, mining, forestry, fishing activities, and other primary
activities.
• The occupations of rural settlements are directly link to the land.
• The size of population is small in rural settlements.
• Rural settlements generally have low population densities.
• The area of rural settlement is usually small.
• Rural settlements lack basic infrastructure such as sewage, roads, high
communication networks, etc.
• The per capita income of rural settlements is generally low.
• Rural settlements have extensive land use and an open landscape.
 Types of Rural Settlements
Rural settlements can be broadly categorized based on the degree of aggregation
of dwellings:

Clustered, Agglomerated, or Nucleated: Houses are built very close to each other, forming a
compact and distinct living area. Common in fertile plains.

Semi-clustered or Fragmented: A result of clustering in a restricted area of a dispersed

settlement, or fragmentation of a large compact village, often due to social or ethnic factors.

Hamleted: A large village is fragmented into several physically separated units, each with a
local name (e.g., panna, para, palli in India).

Dispersed or Isolated: Houses are widely spaced and scattered over a large area, often found
in hilly regions, dense forests, or areas with extensive farming.
Compact/Clustered/Nucleated Settlements:

Houses are built very close to each other,

forming a dense, compact unit. The general living area is
distinct and separated from surrounding farms and
pastures.

Characteristics:
• Closely built-up area with narrow streets.
• Often found in fertile alluvial plains (e.g., Indo-Gangetic
Plains, Nile Valley) where agriculture is intensive and land
is highly productive.
• Facilitates social interaction, community living, and
shared resources (like wells or community spaces).May
have developed for security reasons in the past.
• Examples: Many villages in the plains of India, China, and
parts of Europe.
Semi-Compact/Fragmented Settlements:

A transitional phase between compact and

dispersed settlements. Dwellings are not as tightly
linked as in compact settlements but are still
gathered in a general location.

Characteristics:

• Houses are somewhat clustered but with more

open spaces between them.

• Can result from a tendency of clustering in a

restricted area of dispersed settlement or from the
fragmentation of a larger compact village.

• Found in both plateaus and plains, influenced by

environmental conditions.
Hamleted Settlements:
A settlement fragmented into several distinct units, physically
separated from each other, but bearing a common name. These units
are often known by local terms (e.g., panna, para, palli, nagla, dhani
in India).

Characteristics:

• Multiple small clusters of houses, often separated by fields.

• The central or major village may have little or no influence over the
scattered hamlets.

• Often motivated by social and ethnic factors, where different caste

groups or communities reside in separate hamlets.

Examples: Common in the middle and lower Ganga plain,

Chhattisgarh, and lower valleys of the Himalayas.
Dispersed/Isolated Settlements:

Houses are scattered over a relatively large area, with individual dwellings often
situated at a considerable distance from their neighbors.

Characteristics:

• Isolated huts or small groups of huts.

• Typical in regions with abundant agricultural land (e.g., American Great Plains),
hilly or forested areas, or where farming is done on separate plots.

• Extreme dispersion can be caused by fragmented terrain and land resource base.

• Less social interaction due to scattered living arrangements.

Examples: Parts of Maharashtra, southern India, hilly regions, and remote jungles.
 Forms or Configurations of Settlements (based on shape):Settlements can
also take on various geometrical patterns:

Linear: Houses are established along a road, river, railway line, canal, or valley edge.

Rectangular: Found in plain regions where roads cross each other at right angles.

Circular: Villages grow around lakes, tanks, or in a way that the central part is accessible for
communal activities or animal protection.

T-shaped, Y-shaped, Cross-shaped (Cruciform): Develop at road junctions (tri-junctions,

where two roads meet a third, or crossroads, respectively).

Double Village: Settlements spread on both sides of a river where there is a bridge or ferry.
Factors influencing settlement patterns
Physical Environment: Topography, climate, water availability, and soil fertility significantly influence where people
choose to settle. For example, fertile plains with ample water resources tend to support denser settlements compared
to mountainous or arid regions.

Economic Activities: The dominant economic activities of a region, like agriculture, fishing, mining, or manufacturing,
play a major role in shaping settlement patterns. For example, agricultural societies may exhibit dispersed patterns with
houses on individual farms, while areas with strong industrial or commercial sectors might develop nucleated
settlements around key economic hubs.

Transportation Networks: Access to transportation routes like roads, rivers, or railways can significantly influence
settlement patterns, often leading to linear patterns along these corridors.

Cultural and Social Factors: Traditions, social structures, religious practices, and ethnicity can also influence settlement
patterns. For instance, some cultures may prefer close-knit communities, leading to nucleated settlements, while others
might favor a more dispersed arrangement.

Political and Governmental Factors: Government policies related to land use, zoning, resource allocation, and rural
development can directly shape settlement patterns.
Morphology of Rural Settlement
• Physical Morphology
• Social Morphology
• Doxiadis classification of Rural Morphology

Morphology refers to the internal structure or the

constructional plan of a village which includes the layout of streets and
roads, arrangement of houses, pattern of housing, geometrical size and
shape of village and agricultural fields, location of either the water
body, religious site, or the house of the village headman.

Rural Morphology includes

• Physical Morphology
• Social Morphology
 Physical Morphology : Physical Morphology includes the study of
the relationship between the following:
• Road to lane relationship: It includes how roads are connected to lanes.
• Lane to lane relationship: It is description of geometrical arrangement of
lanes. How they are connected to each other and ending at what points.
• Lane to house relationship: Geometry of lanes determines the
arrangement of houses because houses grow along lanes.
• House to house relationship: Physical morphology is also determined by
the spacing between the houses.
Social Morphology : It refers to the social structure of a village which is based on cast,
or class.

In Indian villages, caste hierarchy is reflected in the morphology of

villages. Social factors like division of work, untouchability (not so prominent now),
social prohibition over the work of women and lower casts had all led to a distinct
social morphology of Rural Settlements from urban ones. The following factors affect
the following morphological character of villages:

• Arrangement of buildings
• Pattern of streets and fields
• Functional characteristics of settlement.

For example, the houses of higher cast people like Brahmins would be large and
people from the lower caste would have huts, kutcha houses with cattle.

Villages are closely linked with centre under the Jajmani system
 Doxiadis classification of Rural Morphology
Earliest attempt to classify Rural Morphology was done by Doxiadis. He classified rural morphology into four
sectors:
Homogenous sector or Village core: It consists of the central part of the village. It has a religious site, water body
or Zamindar/ Village headman’s house, or community land. It is surrounded by the own caste man of village
Zamindar. It is the most densely populated region and congested part of the village reflecting patriarchal society
and security concerns.
Transitional zone: This part is occupied by the village
servicemen e.g. Goldsmith, Blacksmith, Milkman, weavers, etc.
This zone is attached with the core of the village where middle
caste people are mixed with poor upper caste people. This
zone is also known as the Artisans zone.
Circulatory part: It is the outer periphery of the village where
new houses and settlers have been migrated or settled
outward due to congestion of the core. Thus, this zone has
mixed land use in terms of social structure.
Special part: It was occupied by landless labours outside the
village close to farmlands because of work opportunities on-
field and social segregation. They are usually the people from
the lower castes.
 Settlement Hierarchy
A settlement hierarchy is a way of classifying human settlements based
on factors like population size, number and type of services, and their sphere of
influence. It arranges settlements in a rank order, with larger settlements offering more
services and influencing larger areas than smaller settlements.

Smaller settlements tend to provide only low order services such as a post
office and newsagents. Whereas, larger settlements have more high order services such
as leisure centres and chain stores. As a result of this the larger the settlement, the
greater the range of services and therefore the market area or sphere of influence.
Homestead/Isolated Dwelling: The smallest unit, often consisting of a single dwelling or a cluster of a few buildings,
typically occupied by one extended or nuclear family.

Population: Very small, usually 1-5 people.

Services: Extremely limited, often self-sufficient or relying on larger settlements for basic needs.

Village:A human settlement larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town. Villages are normally permanent with fixed
dwellings, often clustered together. Historically, in some cultures, building a church signified a hamlet becoming a village.

Population: Typically ranges from a few hundred to a few thousand.

Services: Provides basic, low-order services such as a general store, a post office, a pub, and sometimes a primary school
or a doctor. People usually don't travel far for these goods.

Town: A settlement generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. Towns often have a specific boundary, a name,
and usually their own local government (e.g., a town council).

Population: Varies widely, but generally from a few thousand up to tens of thousands.

Services: Offers both low-order and some high-order services, such as larger shops, secondary schools, medical centers,
banks, and restaurants, serving both its own population and people from surrounding villages and hamlets.
City: A large and permanent human settlement with a substantial population, typically serving as a major center for
administration, commerce, culture, and services. Cities are characterized by high population density and a wide range of
non-agricultural activities.

Population: Generally starts from around 100,000 people, though definitions can vary globally.

Services: Provides a comprehensive range of high-order services, including specialized retail, universities, major hospitals,
diverse entertainment options, and complex transportation systems. Cities have a significant sphere of influence.

Conurbation: A region consisting of a number of cities, large towns, and other urban areas that have merged through
population growth and physical expansion to form one continuous urban or industrially developed area. Conurbations are
often polycentric, meaning they don't have a single dominant core.

Population: Millions.

Examples: Greater London, the area between Liverpool and Manchester (Lancaston).

Megalopolis/Megaregion: A highly urbanized region encompassing a vast network of metropolitan areas that are perceived
as a continuous urban area due to common systems of transport, economy, resources, and ecology. While integrated, the
constituent metropolitan areas often retain their individual identities.

Population: Tens of millions or more.

Examples: The Northeastern United States (Boston to Washington, D.C.), Taiheiyō Belt in Japan
 Rural settlements are fascinating reflections of
human adaptation to their environment, shaped by physical,
cultural, economic, and historical factors. Understanding their
types, patterns, and morphology helps us analyze rural
landscapes and plan for sustainable development.