A settlement is defined as a place where people live, ranging from a single house to a large city with over 10 million residents. Settlements can be classified based on their site, type, shape, size, functions, and hierarchy. Rural settlements are typically smaller areas where people engage in farming, fishing, or mining, while urban settlements are larger areas where people work in non-rural industries and services. Characteristics such as population size, social heterogeneity, and economic functions help distinguish rural from urban settlements.

1. SETTLEMENT

2.  A settlement is a place where people live.
 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 can also be defined as a collection
of buildings with people living in them.
What is a settlement?

3. How can we classify or describe settlement
 Settlements can be grouped together or classified using a
variety of criteria.
 These include:
(i) Site
(ii) Type
(iii) Shape or pattern
(iv) Size
(v) Function
(vi) Hierarchy

4.  Site: The land that a settlement is built on.
 Situation describes where the settlement is
located in relation to surrounding features such
as other settlements
 A settlements functions are activities that
take place there.
 Settlement hierarchies refers to the
arrangement of settlements within a given area
in an order of importance.

5. Favourable Conditions for Siting a
Settlement
 Factors or conditions which may favour the siting of a
settlement include the following:
 (i) Adequate water supply: There must be adequate and
dependable water supply for human use.
 (ii) Fertile soil: The soil must be fertile to promote
agricultural activities.
 (iii) Land for building: Such land must be lowland and
well drained for easy erection of buildings.
 (iv) Good communication network: The presence of
good road roads, railways, airport etc may promote easy
settlement of people in a place.
 (v) Defence: The area should be well protected against
invading enemies.

6. TYPES OF SETTLEMENT
Two types of
settlement
Rural
settlement
Urban
settlement

7. Rural settlement
 The majority of its inhabitants are involve in activity
like farming, fishing, forestry, mining.
 The pattern of rural settlement can vary from a single
farm to a cluster of houses.(dispersed, linear and
nucleated.)

8. Urban settlement
 The majority of people are engage in non –rural
activity.
 They work in office, shops and factories, operate
machinery, provide health care or other services.
 urban settlement can be small like 1000 people or can
be as large as Tokyo-Yokohama in Japan with over
30million people.

9. What type of settlement is this?

10. What type of settlement is this?

11.  Country such as Singapore, Japan, united states of
America, Australia, Germany, united kingdom more
than three quarter of population were living in
urban towns or cities.
 These are first world country.
 In other countries such as India , China ,Egypt ,
Nigeria, most people live in rural areas.
 These are third world country

12. Characteristic of Rural settlement
 It is a relatively small area .
 It has people that know themselves well( homogenous
people)
 It could be nucleated, dispersed or linear.
 They have people with the same cultural background and
language.
 They are normally made up of few building .
 They have few social amenities and the life is simple and
quite.
 They are normally involved in primary activities such as
farming, fishing and lumbering.

13. Characteristic of Urban settlement
 It is a relatively large area.
 It has a large number of people who do not know
themselves very well.(socially heterogeneous).
 They are usually nucleated settlements.
 They have people with different cultural background and
different languages.
 They are made up of many building with thousands of
people living in them.
 They have the abundance of social amenities like pipe
borne water, electricity etc.
 They are mainly involved in secondary ,tertiary and
quaternary industries.

14. Settlement Pattern
Dispersed
Linear
Nucleated
Isolated

15. Isolated Settlement
 This is usually a farmhouse found either in areas
of extreme adverse physical conditions or in
areas of pioneer settlement where land was
divided into planned lots.

16. Dispersed Settlement
 This consists of 2 - 3 buildings, perhaps
forming a hamlet, and separated from the
next small group of buildings by 2 - 3 km

17. Lineated Settlement
 The buildings in this type of settlement are
strung out along a road, river, dyke or canal
in a line.

18. Nucleated Settlement
 Buildings grouped together, originally for defensive
purposes as well as for social and economic reasons.
Usually found around a cross-roads .

20.  A settlement can function as
(i) Market town
(ii) Mining Town
(iii) Industrial/ Manufacturing town
(iv) Port
(v)Route center
(vi) Commercial
(vii) Cultural/ religious
(viii) Administrative
(ix) Residential
(x)Tourist resorts