Settlements - Indian Geography, UPSC, IAS | Geography (Prelims) by Valor Academy PDF Download

Settlements

Settlements

• Human Settlement means cluster of dwellings of any type or size where human beings live.
• For this purpose, people may erect houses and other structures and command some area or territory as their economic support-base

Types

• Rural settlements
• Urban settlements

• The basic differences between rural and urban settlement:
  • The rural settlements derive their life support or basic economic needs from land based primary economic activities, whereas, urban settlements, depend on processing of raw materials and manufacturing of finished goods on the one hand and a variety of services on the other

Types of Rural Settlement

• Clustered, agglomerated or nucleated,

• Semi-clustered or fragmented,

• Hamleted, and

• Dispersed or isolated.

Clustered Settlements

• The clustered rural settlement is a compact or closely built up area of houses.
• In this type of village the general living area is distinct and separated from the surrounding farms, barns and pastures

Semi-Clustered Settlements

• Semi-clustered or fragmented settlements may result from tendency of clustering in a restricted area of dispersed settlement.
•  More often such a pattern may also result from segregation or fragmentation of a large compact village.

Hamleted Settlements

• Sometimes settlement is fragmented into several units physically separated from each other bearing a common name.
• These units are locally called panna, para, palli, nagla, dhani, etc. In various parts of the country.
• This segmentation of a large village is often motivated by social and ethnic factors.

Dispersed Settlements

• Dispersed or isolated settlement pattern in India appears in the form of isolated huts or hamlets of few huts in remote jungles, or on small hills with farms or pasture on the slopes.
• Extreme dispersion of settlement is often caused by extremely fragmented nature of the terrain and land resource base of habitable areas

Urban Settlements

• Unlike rural settlements, urban settlements are generally compact and larger in size.
• They are engaged in a variety of non-agricultural, economic and administrative functions.

Functional Classification

• Administrative towns and cities
• Industrial towns
• Transport Cities
• Commercial towns
• Mining towns
• Garrison Cantonment towns
• Educational towns
• Religious and cultural towns
• Tourist towns

Structural classification

Trends of Urbanization 1991-2001