Question

what is settlement and write about the nucleated,linear and dispersed settlements

Answer 1

Before we proceed to discuss settlement types, it is worth making a distinction between settlement types and settlement patterns. In the geographical literature, these terms convey various meanings, sometimes synonymous, at others interchangeable and in yet others as one being element/part of the other.



But, actually, these are neither of them. In simple language, types of rural settlements imply the degree of dispersion or nucleation of the dwellings whereas the patterns refer to geometrical shapes formed by the arrangement of dwellings.

Various authors have suggested different schemes of discussing settlement types. Finch and Trewartha et al. refers to two primary types of settlements, (i) the isolated or dispersed and (ii) the nucleated. These are two extreme types of groupings, wherein isolated settlements refer to a single family residence and the nucleated settlements refer to a group of dwellings clustered almost in the centre of the village lands.

D.C. Money has given three broad classes of settlements viz. (i) the single large nucleated village, 00 hamlets scattered throughout the countryside and (iii) single homesteads. Enayat Ahrfied gives four types: (i) compact, (ii) cluster and hamlet type, (iii) fragmented or hamleted and (iv) dispersed settlement. R.L. Singh discerns four main types: (i) compact settlements, (ii) semi-compact or hemleted cluster, (iii) semi-sprinkled or fragmented or hamleted settlements and (iv) sprinkled or dispersed type. On the basis of number of villages, hamlets and number of occupance units, R.B. Singh identified four settlements. They are (i) compact, (ii) semi-compact, (iii) hamleted and (iv) dispersed or scattered type.

(i) Compact settlements:

If the number of villages equals the number of hamlets in an area unit, the settlement is designated as compact. Such settlements are found throughout the plateau region of Malwa, in the Narmada Valley, Nimar upland, large parts of Rajasthan, paddy lands in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Vindhyan Plateau and several other cultivated parts of India.

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In such villages all the dwellings are concentrated in one central site. The inhabitants of the village live together and enjoy the benefits of community life. Such settlements range from a cluster of about thirty to hundreds of dwellings of different forms, sizes and functions. Their size varies from 500 to 2,500 persons in sparsely populated parts like Rajasthan to more than 10,000 in the Ganga plain.

(ii) Semi-compact settlements:

If the number of villages equals more than half of the hamlets, it is semi-compact settlement. These are found both in plains and plateaus depending upon the environmental conditions prevailing there. The dwellings in such settlements are not very closely knitted and are huddled together at one common site. It covers more area than the compact settlements; the hamlets occupy new sites near the periphery of the village boundary.

(iii) Hamleted settlements:

If the number of villages is equal to half of hamlet number, it is a hamlet settlement. The hamlets are spread over the area with intervening fields and the main or central settlement is either absent or has feeble influence upon others. Often the original site is not easily distinguishable and the morphological diversity is rarely noticed. Such settlements are found in West Bengal, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and coastal plains.

(iv) Dispersed settlements:

If the number of villages is less than half the number of hamlets, the settlement is regarded as dispersed. The inhabitants of dispersed settlements live in isolated dwellings scattered in the cultivated fields. Individualism, sentiments of living freely, custom of .marriage relations are conducive to such settlements.

However, these dwellings are deprived of neighbourhood, communal interdependence and social interaction. Dispersed settlements are found in tribal areas covering central part of India, eastern and southern Rajasthan, Himalayan slopes and land with dissected and uneven topography. Homesteads or farmsteads of wheat producing areas in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh also belong to this category.