Rural and Urban settlement

What are settlements?

Settlements are places where people live. They vary in size. A settlement may have:

• Just one house.
• Homes for 500 or more people.
• Homes for thousands of people.
• Homes for millions of people.

In addition to variations in size, settlements also vary in other way. They may be:

• Temporary or permanent
• Nucleated or scattered (dispersed)
• Rural or urban

What are the types of settlements?

Temporary settlements

These are the settlements where people need to move from one place to another, for example shifting cultivator’s settlement is temporary because they will have to move to another clearing in the forest after a few days.

Permanent settlements

Most settlement in the world are permanent. This means that the buildings in the settlements may be newly-built, repaired or rebuilt, but different generations of people may live in the settlement over hundreds of years.

Nucleated settlements

A compact town or village in which the buildings are close together. Mostly, towns, cities and many villages are nucleated settlements.

Scattered (dispersed) settlements

In some areas, of the world, houses in the villages are built in the fields and away from each other. These are known as scattered settlements.

Rural settlements

A rural settlements is one where the inhabitants are mainly occupied in, or connected with agriculture activities. These settlements, such as the villages are usually small and are often quite far apart.

Urban settlements

A settlement in an area is described as urban where the majority of the people are engaged in secondary and tertiary activities and do not depend, directly on the land for their livelihood. These settlements are larger than rural settlements and may be much further apart than are villages.