geographical understanding

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Geographical understanding

All settlements are central places. A settlement is a place where people live. Settlements come in lots of different sizes. A settlement may be as small as a single house in a remote area or as a large as a mega city (a city with over 10 million residents).A settlement may be permanent or temporary. An example of a temporary settlement would be a refugee camp. However, a temporary settlement may become permanent over time. This has happened to many refugee camps that have been built in conflict zones. The reasons why a settlement developed or was built can be thought of as its function. For example, the settlement of Ormskirk is a market town.

As well as coming in a variety of sizes, settlements also come in a variety of shapes.

  • Settlements usually develop in a particular pattern (but not always).
  • A nucleated settlement is where the buildings are clustered around a central point, e.g. a bridge or market square.
  • A linear settlement is where the buildings are arranged in a line - usually along a river or road.
  • A dispersed settlement is where the buildings are spread out or scattered. Dispersed settlements are often found in , sparsely-populated areas.
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The actual piece of land upon which a settlement is built is known as the settlement site. There are many reasons why a certain site might be chosen for the development of a settlement. Some factors will be more important than others. If we group and classify a number of settlements according to their size the result is called a settlement hierarchy. A settlement hierarchy ranks settlements according to their shape and size. As you move up the hierarchy the size of the settlement increases and the frequency - the number of similar settlements - decreases. As you can see ...

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