Unit 3 - Human Environment: Settlement change Flashcards
Define Settlement?
A place where people live. A settlement can range from one an isolated building to a capital city of over 20 million people (e.g. Mexico City).
Define Site
The actual location or place that a settlement is built.
Define Situation
The area surrounding the site of a settlement. For example you might talk about if the settlement is near a river, or near the coast or in a valley surrounded by mountains.
define Urban
The built up area, any city with a population of 10,000 people or more.
define Rural
Basically the countryside (everywhere outside urban areas). Rural areas maybe farmland, forest, desert or savanna depending on where you are in the world. Rural areas do contain small settlements of less than 10,000 people e.g. hamlets and villages.
define MEDC
More economically developed country. Basically a richer country e.g. US, Japan or UK
Define LEDC
Less economically developed country. Basically a poorer country e.g. Honduras, Uganda or Bangladesh
What are rural settlements?
Settlements that are found in the countryside (rural areas) and contain less than 10,000 residents.
What is a urban settlement?
Settlements that contain more than 10,000 residents.
Isolated building?
A single building. An isolated building is normally a farm.
Hamlet?
A small group of houses, normally about 5 to 10. There is often no services in a hamlet.
Village?
A settlement of up to 10,000 people. Villages will have some services in them like small shops, a primary school, a doctors surgery, bus routes.
Town?
A settlement of over 10,000 people that has not be designated a city.
City?
A large town, in the UK a town becomes a city when it has a cathedral in it.
Capital city?
The main administrative centre within a country and the home of the national government.
Primate city?
The largest and most important city within a country. The primate city will often have double the population of the next most important city. Most of the time the primate city is also the capital city, but there are some famous exceptions e.g. New York, Sydney and Sao Paolo.
Conurbation?
Two or more towns or cities that have joined to together e.g. Birmingham, Walsall, Dudley and Wolverhampton in England.
Megalopolis?
A conurbation or a clustering of cities with a population of over 10 million people e.g. Tokyo.
When the sites of settlement were first chosen, settlers would mainly have looked for natural advantages. These may have included:
Water supply Fertile land Flat land (relief) Defensive position Building materials transport links Fuel Weather trade locations Resources
The five main settlement patterns that you need to be able to recognize: Isolated?
Singly buildings on their own. These will normally be found in mountainous areas and will normally be the farmhouse of a large farm.
The five main settlement patterns that you need to be able to recognize: Dispersed?
When individual buildings are separated by several hundred meetings. They are individual isolated buildings and do not form a single settlement.
The five main settlement patterns that you need to be able to recognize: Loose knit?
When houses are built near each other and are obviously in the same settlement, but there is spaces between them.
The five main settlement patterns that you need to be able to recognize: Linear or Ribbon?
This is a settlement that has grown in a line. The line doesn’t have to be straight, but will normally follow a road, a river, the coast or the valley floor.
The five main settlement patterns that you need to be able to recognize: Nucleated?
When all the houses in a settlement are built very close together, often around a central village green or church.
Causes of settlement Dispersion?
- Mountainous areas that are hard to build on and hard to build good transport links to.
- Severe weather conditions e.g. extremely hot or cold or wet.
- Mainly farm land
- Floodplain or coastal area that is vulnerable to flooding
- Only limited natural resources
- No job prospects
- No nearby schools and hospitals
- No electricity supply
- No entertainment
Causes of settlement Nucleation?
- Good transport links (road, rail, river)
- Good fertile land nearby to grow food.
- Flat land, that is easy to build on
- Stable weather that is good for growing.
- Nearby natural resources e.g. fuel
- Good job prospects
- Good schools and hospitals
- Good and reliable supply of electricity, gas and water.
- Varied entertainment
The job, purpose or use of a settlement. Large settlements will have more than one function and these functions may change over time. Functions may include:
- Shopping (Retail)
- Business (Commercial)
- Farming (Agricultural)
- Housing (Residential)
- Educational
- Healthcare
- Administration (local or -national government)
- Fishing
- Tourism
- Entertainment
- Sporting
Functions in rural areas(services)?
Rural areas tend to have a lot less functions than urban areas. The main purpose of settlements in rural areas is normally agriculture (farming) and possibly tourism. This is because rural areas have less people, poorer transport, poorer communication, less technology and the land is better used for other purposes i.e. agriculture.
Functions in urban areas(services)?
Urban areas tend to have a lot more functions ranging from shopping functions, to educational functions, to transport functions, to administrative functions and residential functions. The bigger the urban area, the more functions that it normally has.
Hierarchy?
Placing things in an order of importance.
Sphere of Influence?
The distance or area people travel from to access a service i.e. the area served by a settlement or service.
Services?
Facilities that are offered to people e.g. supermarket, cinema, school or train station. Services have a threshold population, which helps explain why bigger settlements have more services.
Range?
This usually refers to the number of different services e.g. a school, a post office, etc. It can also refer to the distance people travel to access a service or settlement.
Threshold Population?
The minimum amount of people required for a service to be offered and remain open.
Low Order Goods (Convenience)?
Goods that people buy every day. They don’t usually cost much money and people would not normally travel far to buy them e.g. bread and milk.
The hierarchy(Placing things in an order of importance.) of a settlement normally depends on three variable?
- The size of population
- The range and number of services
- The sphere of influence
CBD?
The Central Business District. This the area in the middle of urban areas where there tends to be a concentration of retail and commercial land uses.