Settlements Studies Past Paper PDF 2024

SETTLEMENTS STUDIES  Definition of terms Settlement - a place where people live. Site - actual place where a village or town grow. e.g. on a river bend, on top of a hill, on flat land etc. Situation - The location of a settlement in relation to the surrounding area e.g. ‘near a bridging...

SETTLEMENTS STUDIES  Definition of terms Settlement - a place where people live. Site - actual place where a village or town grow. e.g. on a river bend, on top of a hill, on flat land etc. Situation - The location of a settlement in relation to the surrounding area e.g. ‘near a bridging point’ or ‘on a route centre’. Threshold population- The number of people needed to support a particular function/service. Range - the maximum distance that people are prepared to travel in order to obtain a good or service. Function - The main purpose of a town or part of a town. E.g. residential, industrial, commercial etc. Urban sprawl - The growth of an urban area into the rural-urban fringe. Rural – urban fringe - where green, open spaces meet the built-up areas of towns and cities. Settlement hierarchy – is a way of arranging/ranking settlements based upon their population size or some other criteria/ classification  Types of settlements Rural – a settlement in the countryside Urban - The built up area which is away from the (everywhere outside urban countryside. areas). Examples Examples Town: A settlement of over 10,000 people that Isolated Building: A single building. An isolated has not be designated a city. building is normally a farm. City: A large town, in the UK a town becomes a Hamlet: A small group of houses, normally city when it has a cathedral in it. about 5 to 10. Conurbation: Two or more towns or cities that Village: A settlement of up to 10,000 people. have joined to together e.g. Birmingham Megapolis: A conurbation or a clustering of cities with a population of over 10 million people e.g. Tokyo.  How sites were chosen in the in early settlement 1. Presence of high lands for protection 2. Nearness to a water source for water supply 3. Availability of Building materials e.g. rocks, trees, grass 4. Abundant trees for Supply of wood 5. Presence of Flat land 6. Availability of Fertile soil 7. Safe from areas that flood 8. To have good access to other places NB: An ideal site would have all these things, but very few do, so a compromise would have to be made. Difference between rural and urban settlements Variable Urban Rural Population size More than 10 000 Less than 10 000 Spatial size Big Small Infrastructure Advanced, varied Limited, poor Function More functions ranging e.g Agriculture (farming) - shopping functions, possibly tourism. - educational functions, forestry - transport functions, - administrative functions - residential functions. The bigger the urban area, the more functions that it normally has. Services Wide variety Limited High order services (Comparison) Low order (Convenience) It is goods that people buy less They will be used frequently/It is goods frequently. that people buy every day. They tend to be more expensive, and They do not usually cost much money people will normally compare quality and people would not normally travel far and price before purchasing e.g., a to buy them e.g., bread and milk. TV, car or holiday. Examples are general stores, local primary school and a post office  Settlement Patterns Dispersed Linear or Ribbon Nucleated When individual buildings are This is a settlement that has When all the houses in a spread apart grown in a line. The line does settlement are built very not have to be straight, but will close together, often around normally follow a road, a river, a central village green or the coast or the valley floor. church.