1.5 Settlements And Service Provision

Question 1

What is a settlement?

Answer 1

A place in which people live and where they carry out various activities, such as residence, trade, agriculture, and manufacturing.

Question 2

What are the five components of a settlement?

Answer 2

1. Pattern
2. Form
3. Site and Situation
4. Function and Hierarchy
5. Change

Question 3

What is a dispersed settlement pattern?

Answer 3

A pattern in which individual houses and farms are widely scattered throughout the countryside.

Question 4

In areas where the physical geography is quite extreme there is likely to be..?

Answer 4

A low population density and a poor transport network.

Question 5

What are nucleated settlements?

Answer 5

Those in which houses and other buildings are tightly clustered around a central feature.

Question 6

Such nucleated settlements are usually termed..?

Answer 6

Hamlets or villages according to their size and/or function.

Question 7

What is a hamlet?

Answer 7

A small rural settlement that is more than just an isolated dwelling, but not large enough to be a village. Typically it has 11-100 people. In the UK, it may have a church and a pub but very little else.

Question 8

What is a village?

Answer 8

A small assemblage of houses, smaller than a town or city and larger than a hamlet.

Question 9

What is a function?

Answer 9

A classification of settlements based on their socio-economic functions, for example market town, commuter towns and ports.

Question 10

What is the form?

Answer 10

The shape of a settlements, mainly influenced by its physical geography and topography.

Question 11

What is a linear settlement?

Answer 11

Housing that has grown up along a route such as a road. Many settlements show this pattern, since roads offer improved access to employment centres.

Question 12

What is a cruciform settlement?

Answer 12

A settlement that occurs at an intersection of roads and usually consists of line of buildings radiating out from the crossroads.

Question 13

What is a green village?

Answer 13

A village that consists of dwelling and other buildings, such as a church, clustered around a small village green or common, or other open space.

Question 14

What is a site?

Answer 14

The immediate location in which a settlement is located.

Question 15

What is a situation?

Answer 15

The relative location in which a settlement is located.

Question 16

What is an aspect?

Answer 16

The direction in which something faces.

Question 17

What is a dry point site?

Answer 17

An area free from flooding in an otherwise wet region, for example a hilltop site surrounded by a marsh.

Question 18

What is a wet point site?

Answer 18

A settlement with a reliable site of water in an otherwise dry area. (An oasis?)

Question 19

What is a spring line settlement?

Answer 19

A line of settlements at a site where water is available.

Question 20

What is the hierarchy?

Answer 20

The organisation and structure of settlement based on size and the number of functions that a settlement has. At the top of the hierarchy are cities and conurbations. At the base are individual farmsteads and hamlets.

Question 21

What are low-order goods/functions/services?

Answer 21

Items or services that are purchased/required frequently (convenience goods), such as milk or bread. People are not prepared to travel far to buy such items and there is no real saving in shopping around.

Question 22

What are high-order goods/functions/services?

Answer 22

Expensive services and goods (comparison goods) such as electrical goods and furniture, that the shopper will buy only after making a comparison between various models and different shops.

Question 23

What is the range?

Answer 23

The distance people are prepared to travel to obtain a good or service.

Question 24

What factors favour nucleation?

Answer 24

1. Joint and cooperative working of the land - people live in nearby settlements.
2. Defence, for example hilltop locations, sites within a meander or walled cities such as Jericho.
3. Shortage of water causing people to locate in areas close to springs.
4. Swampy conditions which force settlements to locate on dry ground.
5. Near important junctions and crossroads as these favour trade and communications.
6. In some countries, the government has encouraged people to live in nucleated settlements.

Question 25

Advantages and Disadvantages of alternative sites for agriculture and housing?

Answer 25

1. Availability of water.
2. Freedom from flooding.
3. Level sites to build on.
4. Local timber for construction and fuel.
5. Aspect, for example sunny south-facing slopes as these are warmer than north facing slopes.
6. Proximity to rich soils.
7. The potential for trade and commerce.

Question 26

What is the threshold population?

Answer 26

The number of people needed to support a good or service.

Question 27

What is the sphere of influence?

Answer 27

The area that a settlement serves.