In geography , statistics and archaeology , a settlement , locality or populated place is a community of people living in a particular place . The complexity of a settlement can range from a minuscule number of dwellings grouped together to the largest of cities with surrounding urbanized areas . Settlements include hamlets , villages , towns and cities . A settlement may have known historical properties such as the date or era in which it was first settled, or first settled by particular people. The process of settlement involves human migration .
24-495: [REDACTED] Look up settlement in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Settlement may refer to: Human settlement , a community where people live Settlement (structural) , downward movement of a structure's foundation Settlement (finance) , where securities are delivered against payment of money Settlement (litigation) , a resolution between disputing parties about
48-567: A Geographic Names Information System that defines three classes of human settlement: Populated places may be specifically defined in the context of censuses and be different from general-purpose administrative entities, such as "place" as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau or census-designated places . In the field of geospatial predictive modeling , a settlement is "a city, town, village, or other agglomeration of buildings where people live and work". The Global Human Settlement Layer ( GHSL ) framework produces global spatial information about
72-512: A National Register of Populated places (NRPP). The Canadian government uses the term "populated place" in the Atlas of Canada , but does not define it. Statistics Canada uses the term localities for historically named locations. The Croatian Bureau of Statistics records population in units called settlements ( naselja ) . The Census Commission of India has a special definition of census towns . The Central Statistics Office (CSO) of
96-685: A community to draw down local water tables when and where necessary without exacerbating drought problems at other times. Particularly in Colorado , the term ditch is also applied to open aqueducts that traverse hillsides as part of transbasin diversion projects. Examples include the Grand Ditch over La Poudre Pass , the Berthoud Pass Ditch, and the Boreas Pass Ditch. Herbicides may be used to maintain
120-535: A legal case Settlement (trust) , a deed whereby property is given by a settlor into trust Closing (real estate) , the final step in executing a real estate transaction See also [ edit ] All pages with titles beginning with Settlement All pages with titles containing Settlement Act of Settlement (disambiguation) , various legislation Settlement Act, or Poor Relief Act 1662 Collective settlement , another name for an intentional community Collective settlement (litigation) ,
144-465: A legal term Sedentism , the practice of living in one place for a long time Settlement geography , investigating the part of the Earth's surface settled by humans Settlement movement , a Victorian era reformist social movement Settlement school , social reform institutions established in rural Appalachia in the early 20th century Settler colonialism , replacing the original population with
168-518: A more distant source for plant irrigation . Ditches are commonly seen around farmland , especially in areas that have required drainage, such as The Fens in eastern England and much of the Netherlands . Roadside ditches may provide a hazard to motorists and cyclists , whose vehicles may crash into them and get damaged, flipped over, or stuck and cause major injury, especially in poor weather conditions and rural areas. In Anglo-Saxon ,
192-453: A natural stream sinuosity and a multi-terraced channel cross section appear to be key to maintain both peak ditch drainage capacity, and minimum net pollution and nutrient transport. Flooding can be a major cause of recurring crop loss—particularly in heavy soils—and can severely disrupt urban economies as well. Subsurface drainage to ditches offers a way to remove excess water from agricultural fields, or vital urban spaces, without
216-419: A new society of settlers Soil consolidation , a process by which soils decrease in volume Squatting , occupying an abandoned building Structured settlement , a negotiated financial or insurance arrangement Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Settlement . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change
240-743: A populated place as "a named settlement with a population of 200 or more persons". The Committee for Geographical Names in Australasia used the term localities for rural areas, while the Australian Bureau of Statistics uses the term "urban centres/localities" for urban areas. The Agency for Statistics in Bosnia and Herzegovina uses the term "populated place" / "settled place" for rural (or urban as an administrative center of some Municipality/City), and "Municipality" and "City" for urban areas. The Bulgarian Government publishes
264-432: A special type of cultural-historical landscape studies. Settlements can be ordered by size, centrality or other factors to define a settlement hierarchy . A settlement hierarchy can be used for classifying settlement all over the world, although a settlement called a "town" in one country might be a "village" in other countries; or a "large town" in some countries might be a "city" in others. Geoscience Australia defines
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#1732765140711288-885: Is a soak dike in Bourne North Fen , near Twenty and alongside the River Glen . Drainage ditches play major roles in agriculture throughout the world . Improper drainage systems accelerate water contamination , excessively desiccate soils during seasonal drought , and become a financial burden to maintain. Industrial earth-moving equipment facilitates maintenance of straight drainage trenches, but entrenchment results in increasing environmental and eventually profound economic costs over time. Sustainable channel design can result in ditches that are largely self-maintaining due to natural geomorphological equilibrium. Slowed net siltation and erosion result in net reduction in sediment transport . Encouraging development of
312-734: Is a combined structure and Car Dyke is a trench, though it once had raised banks as well. In the English Midlands and East Anglia , a dyke is what a ditch is in the south of England, a property-boundary marker or drainage channel. Where it carries a stream, it may be called a running dike as in Rippingale Running Dike , which leads water from the catchwater drain , Car Dyke, to the South Forty Foot Drain in Lincolnshire (TF1427). The Weir Dike
336-618: Is a related designation used in the United States. The earliest geographical evidence of a human settlement was Jebel Irhoud , where early modern human remains of eight individuals date back to the Middle Paleolithic around 300,000 years ago. The oldest remains that have been found of constructed dwellings are remains of huts that were made of mud and branches around 17,000 BC at the Ohalo site (now underwater) near
360-552: Is processed fully automatically and generates analytics and knowledge reporting objectively and systematically about the presence of population and built-up infrastructures. The GHSL operates in an open and free data and methods access policy (open input, open method, open output). The term "Abandoned populated places" is a Feature Designation Name in databases sourced by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and GeoNames . Sometimes
384-638: The Republic of Ireland has had a special definition of census towns . From the 2022 census of Ireland , the CSO introduced an urban geography unit called " Built Up Areas " (BUAs). The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics records population in units of settlements called Tehsil – an administrative unit derived from the Mughal era. There are various types of inhabited localities in Russia . Statistics Sweden uses
408-577: The edge of the Sea of Galilee . The Natufians built houses, also in the Levant , around 10,000 BC. Remains of settlements such as villages become much more common after the invention of agriculture, The oldest of them is Jarmo , located in Iraq. Landscape history studies the form (morphology) of settlements – for example whether they are dispersed or nucleated . Urban morphology can thus be considered
432-426: The erosion rates and pollution transport that results from direct surface runoff . However, excess drainage results in recurring drought induced crop yield losses and more severe urban heat island or desiccation issues. Controlled subsurface drainage from sensitive areas to vegetated drainage ditches makes possible a better balance between water drainage and water retention needs. The initial investment allows
456-400: The human presence on the planet over time. This in the form of built up maps, population density maps and settlement maps. This information is generated with evidence-based analytics and knowledge using new spatial data mining technologies. The framework uses heterogeneous data including global archives of fine-scale satellite imagery, census data, and volunteered geographic information. The data
480-797: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Settlement&oldid=1223943490 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Human settlement In the field of geospatial predictive modeling , settlements are "a city, town, village or other agglomeration of buildings where people live and work". A settlement conventionally includes its constructed facilities such as roads , enclosures , field systems , boundary banks and ditches , ponds , parks and woodlands , wind and water mills , manor houses , moats and churches . An unincorporated area
504-408: The structures are still easily accessible, such as in a ghost town , and these may become tourist attractions. Some places that have the appearance of a ghost town, however, may still be defined as populated places by government entities. A town may become a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, because of a government action, such as the building of a dam that floods
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#1732765140711528-598: The term localities ( tätort ) for various densely populated places. The common English-language translation is urban areas . The UK Department for Communities and Local Government uses the term "urban settlement" to denote an urban area when analysing census information. The Registrar General for Scotland defines settlements as groups of one or more contiguous localities, which are determined according to population density and postcode areas. The Scottish settlements are used as one of several factors defining urban areas. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has
552-465: The town, or because of natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, uncontrolled lawlessness, or war. The term is sometimes used to refer to cities, towns, and neighborhoods that are still populated, but significantly less so than in years past. Ditch A ditch is a small to moderate trench created to channel water . A ditch can be used for drainage , to drain water from low-lying areas, alongside roadways or fields, or to channel water from
576-421: The word dïc already existed and was pronounced [diːk] ("deek") in northern England and [diːtʃ] "deetch" in the south. The origins of the word lie in digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank alongside it. This practice has meant that the name dïc was given to either the excavation or the bank, and evolved to both the words "dike"/"dyke" and "ditch". Thus Offa's Dyke
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