Settlement Patterns

Settlement Patterns, distribution and spacing of settlements, and the relationship between settlements of different sizes. The study of settlement patterns may also include the form, or morphology, of individual settlements. Settlement patterns are usually described as dispersed or nucleated. A dispersed settlement is a scattering of isolated farmhouses, cottages, or dwellings. Nucleated settlements are compact clusters of dwellings around a central organizational point, such as a church or a village green. A village is a nucleated rural settlement focusing on a church, perhaps with other local functions, such as a market. The smaller hamlet is a cluster of a few farmhouses, usually without a church.

Several attempts have been made to explain the evolution of settlement patterns, some concentrating on the influence of physical geography while others have emphasized economic factors. Physical geography undoubtedly exerted a strong influence on the initial location of early settlements. Wet point sites were chosen for the supply of water necessary for life. In southern England, for example, springs at the foot of chalk or limestone escarpments provided a suitable supply of water and created the pattern of spring-line villages evident today. In drier parts of the world, settlements have been established at natural oases and where the water table was near enough to the Earth’s surface to be tapped, e.g. in the outback of Australia. Sites were also chosen for other reasons associated with the landscape such as defensible positions within river meanders (for example, Toledo, Spain), fording or bridging points on rivers (for example, Gloucester, England), and where transport was easy in several directions (for example, Paris, France). See also Water, Access to.

Settlement patterns can be usefully described in terms of their geometry. A regular pattern occurs where settlements are spaced evenly, usually across flat regions, such as East Anglia in England and the Canadian Prairies. Where settlements are clustered in a few locations, with virtually no places between each group, the pattern is said to be nucleated. A random pattern is created when the location of individual settlements appears to be unrelated to the location of others. Precision can be given to the measurement of the pattern using nearest-neighbour analysis, which gives a value of 0 for highly clustered patterns and 2.15 where the pattern is completely regular; a value of 1.0 indicates a random distribution pattern. Similarly, the relationship in size between settlements can be examined statistically. According to the rank-size rule, the size of settlements will be inversely proportional to their rank, which means that the second largest settlement will have a population half the size of the largest settlement and the third settlement will be one third the size of the largest, and so on. This rule holds broadly true for many countries except that the largest city is often three or four times the size of the next. In many of the countries that have only recently begun to industrialize, dominant or primate cities are fast emerging as major megalopolises that are far larger than any other town.

The best-known theory of settlement spacing is central place theory. Devised by the German geographer Walter Christaller and refined by his compatriot, August Lösch, it seeks to explain patterns of settlement in relation to the services provided by each place. Christaller envisaged theoretical hexagonal market areas around each settlement, with the size and importance of each place being determined by the number of smaller places it served. The significance of central place theory is that it exposed the relationship between economic factors and settlement development. Market areas are a vital part of business decisions that in turn affect the growth and prosperity of settlements of all sizes. In the Netherlands, central place theory was applied to the building of new settlements on the polder (or reclaimed) lands.