5. Patterns of settlements

• Settlement


  A place where people live and carry out a range of activities - trade, manufacturing, agriculture etc.
• Factors that influence settlements

  • Shape or form
  • Site and situation
  • Function and hierarchy
  • Change and growth - modern-day settlement patterns are changing due to population change, technological developments, changing lifestyles and expanding urban limits (rise of the megacities and urban sprawl)
• Settlement patterns


  • Isolated buildings in rural regions
  • Urban megacities of over 10 million people
  • Urban towns, cities, conurbations and megacities (usually densely populated over a smaller area)
  • Rural towns and fringe areas (usually densely populated over a larger area)
  • Villages and hamlets (usually have a lower population density and smaller settled areas)
• Physical geography


  Dictates settlement patterns
• Form/Shape


  How the settlement is laid out
• Settlement forms/shapes


  • Linear (along a river, railway or major road)
  • Circular (around a central feature like a village green or lake)
  • Star (several roads meet)
  • T-form (one road meets another at a junction)
  • Y-form (two roads meet)
  • Cruciform (at cross-roads, houses cluster and spread in all four directions)
  • Cross-shaped (linear around the crossroad)
• Dispersed settlements


  Isolated houses or farms set in fields or along roads rather than concentrated in one area
• Reasons for dispersed settlements

  • Sparsely populated rural areas
  • Break-up of large rural estates in England during the 16th and 17th centuries
  • Extreme physical geography (too hot, wet, cold or dry)
• Linear settlements


  Settlements group and form a line along a physical feature such as a river or a trade and transport route
• Nucleated settlements


  Settlements tightly cluster around a central feature such as a village green, a crossroad or a church
• Reasons for nucleated settlements

  • Defence
  • Trade
  • Co-operative community (agriculture, water, work)
  • Floodplain - safer to group on a hilltop
• Rural


  An area with less than 10,000 people living within its boundaries
• Urban


  An area with more than 10,000 people living within its boundaries
• Rural settlements


  • Dispersed
  • Hamlet
  • Village
  • Small market town
• Urban settlements


  • Large towns
  • Cities
  • Conurbations
  • Megacities