,Study of Settlements
- Settlement: a place where people live
- Site: the physical space (actual ground) that a settlement occupies
- Situation: the relationship between the settlement and its surrounding environment
- Rural Settlement: a settlement which is usually unifunctional and associated with primary economic
activities
- Urban Settlement: a settlement which is multifunctional and associated with secondary, tertiary and
quaternary economic activities
- Isolated Farmstead: a settlement which consists of a few buildings and one or two families
- Hamlet: a small grouping of a few farmsteads which may have its own church but does not have any
shops or services
- Village: a fairly large farming community which provides a few basic services
- Town: the smallest urban settlement which provides secondary activities and services to the
surrounding rural area
- City: a large urban centre which offers specialised services
- Metropolis: a very large urban area consisting of a large city and its neighbouring towns and suburbs
- Conurbation: A continuously urban area which develops when cities and towns expand out towards
eachother and merge
- Megalopolis: is a sprawling urban area consisting of adjoining conurbations
- Complexity: refers to the number of elements or components which occur in a settlement
- Pattern: the physical shape of a settlement as well as its position in relation to other settlements
- Dispersed Pattern: individual settlements or buildings are placed far apart from eachother (they are
isolated)
- Nucleated Pattern: settlements and buildings are situated close to eachother (clustered)
Rural Settlements
- Commercial enterprises: activities which aim to make a profit through the sales of their products
- Self sufficient communities: independent communities which provide all their basic needs
themselves
- Dispersed: spread out over a large area
- Nucleated: clustered in a relatively small area
- Wet point settlement: a settlement located around a water point in a dry or arid region
- Dry point settlement: a settlement located on higher lying ground away from marshland and potential
flooding
- Subsistence farming: farming to feed oneself and family, no excess is produced for sale
- Mixed farming: a combination of crop and stock farming
- Commercial farming: farms which are run as businesses with the aim of making a profit
- Monoculture: the practise of producing only one type of crop
- Railhead: railroad depot at which supplies are then distributed/ forwarded by another mode of
transport
- Intensive farming: type of commercial farming where the output and the labour input is high in
relation to the size of the farm
- Extensive farming: type of commercial farming where the yield per hectare and labour inputs are low
in relation to the size of the farm. Farms are big and most processes are mechanised
, - Rural-urban fringe: the transition zone between a city and its suburbs and the rural area
Rural Settlement issues
- Rural-urban migration: the movement of people from rural to urban areas
- Urbanisation: the process whereby a population becomes more urbanised, an increase in the
percentage of people living in urban settlements
- Homelands: ten demarcated areas set aside for black South Africans during apartheid. Also known as
Bantusans
- Rural depopulation: the decrease in rural population caused either by people leaving the area or a
declining birth rate
- Push factors: negative elements which occur in an area; they encourage movement out of the area
- Pull factors: positive elements that occur in an area that attract people to move there
- Ghost town: an abandoned town. The population leaves because the economic activity that supported
it has failed
- Pilot project: a trial or test run for a large, long term programme. Pilot projects allow designers to test
the effectiveness of a programme and correct any problems that occur
- Ecotourism: responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the
welfare of the local people
- Adventure tourism: tourism that involves elements of risk and physical effort in unfamiliar
surroundings
- Forced removals: apartheid policy that forced millions of South Africans to move from their homes and
re-settle into the specific areas based on race
- Betterment planning: an apartheid policy which aimed to regulate and control land use in the
homelands. Traditional villages were reduced in size and specific residential, grazing and cultivation zones
are demarcated
- Land redistribution: the programme that aims to make land ownership more equal across race
groups. The government buys land from white commercial farmers and redistrbutes it, as well as state-
owned land, to previously disadvantaged communities
- Land resitution: land is restored to its original owners
- Land tenure: the rules and regulations governing the rights of holding, disposing of and using land i.e.
the conditions under which land is held or occupied
- Afforestation: the establishment of forests by planting or seeding in an area of non-forest land
- Remittances: money that is sent back home by migrant workers
Urban Settlements
- Urban growth: the number of people living in urban settlements increases
- Level of urbanisation: the number of people living in urban settlements expressed as a percentage of
the total population
- Rate of urbanisation: the pace or speed at which urbanisation occurs
- Megacity: a city that has a population of 10 million or more
- Central place: an urban settlement which supplies goods and services to the surrounding rural
community
- Trade and transport settlements: are established to meet and provide trade and transport needs
and services
- Specialised settlements: settlements which have one predominant function
Urban Hierarchies
- Urban hierarchy: a ranking or ordering system of urban settlements
- Threshold population: the minimum number of customers required for a service to make a profit
- Sphere of influence: the area from which a service draws its customers
- Range: the maximum distance a customer is prepared to travel for a particular good or service
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