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 .
79-416: A village is a clustered human settlement or community , larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas , the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighborhoods. Villages are normally permanent, with fixed dwellings ; however, transient villages can occur. Further,
158-502: A "masjid" ( mosque ) or " surau " , paddy fields and Malay houses on stilts . Malay and Indonesian villagers practice the culture of helping one another as a community, which is better known as "joint bearing of burdens" ( gotong royong ). They are family-oriented (especially the concept of respecting one's family [particularly the parents and elders]), courtesy and practice belief in God ( "Tuhan" ) as paramount to everything else. It
237-567: 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
316-512: 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
395-507: A few thousand residents, were usually larger than a typical selo in central Russia. In Ukraine , a village, ( Ukrainian : село , romanized : selo , IPA: [selo] ), is considered the lowest administrative unit. Villages are under the jurisdiction of a hromada administration. There is another smaller type of rural settlement which is designated in Ukrainian as a selyshche ( селище ). This type of community
474-413: A part of a municipality are called frazione , whereas the village that hosts the municipal seat is called paese (town) or capoluogo . A non-profit private association of small Italian towns of strong historical and artistic interest named I Borghi più belli d'Italia (English: The most beautiful Villages of Italy ) and affiliated to the international association The Most Beautiful Villages in
553-743: 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
632-595: A result of the civil war. However, because they are not controlled by the PRC, they are not included as part of "mainland China." Hong Kong and Macau have been territories of the PRC since 1997 and 1999 respectively. However, due to the One Country, Two Systems policy, the two regions maintain a degree of autonomy, hence they are not governed as part of mainland China. Geographically speaking, Hong Kong and Macau are both connected to mainland China in certain areas (e.g.
711-494: A rural environment. While commonly it is the smallest administrative unit ( municipio ), it is possible for a village to be legally composed of smaller population units in its territory. There is not a clear-cut distinction between villages, towns and cities in Spain, since they had been traditionally categorized according to their religious importance and their relationship with surrounding population units. Villages are more usual in
790-500: A small proportion of the population living in them. The Industrial Revolution attracted people in larger numbers to work in mills and factories; the concentration of people caused many villages to grow into towns and cities. This also enabled specialization of labor and crafts and the development of many trades. The trend of urbanization continues but not always in connection with industrialization. Historically, homes were situated together for sociability and defence, and land surrounding
869-432: 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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#1732766143681948-405: A village around the lord's manor, a Cossack family often lived on its own farm, called khutor . A number of such khutors plus a central village made up the administrative unit with a center in a stanitsa ( Russian : станица , romanized : stanitsa ; Ukrainian : станиця , romanized : stanytsya , lit. 'stanytsia'). Such stanitsas , often with
1027-620: A village is ves ( Polish : wieś, wioska ; Czech : ves, vesnice ; Slovak : ves ; Slovene : vas ; Russian : весь , romanized : ves ). In Slovenia , the word selo is used for very small villages (fewer than 100 people) and in dialects; the Slovene word vas is used all over Slovenia . In Russia and Bulgaria , the word ves is archaic, but remains in idioms and locality names, such as Vesyegonsk and Belevehchevo . The most commonly used word for village in Slovak
1106-489: Is Il fascino dell'Italia nascosta ("The charm of hidden Italy"). As of November 2023, 361 villages in Italy have been listed in "The Most Beautiful Villages of Italy". In Spain, a village ( pueblo ) refers to a small population unit, smaller than a town ( villa [an archaic term that survives only in official uses, such as the official name of Spain's capital, "la Villa de Madrid"]) and a city ( ciudad ), typically located in
1185-651: Is dedina (dialectical also dzedzina ). The word's etymology may be (or may not be) rooted in the verb dediť ("to inherit"), referencing the inheriting of whole villages or properties within villages by noblemen or wealthy landowners. Another etymology could be related to the Sanskrit word deśá ( देश ) similar to the Afghan deh , Bengal desh and Indonesian desa . The term ves appears in settlement names (mostly villages, but also some towns that evolved over time from villages). The dialect term for village in east Slovakia
1264-419: Is 11%. It also stated that the state of the environment in the small towns and villages is good apart from the low level of infrastructure. In Bulgaria, it is popular to visit villages for the atmosphere, culture, crafts, hospitality of the people and the surrounding nature. This is called selski turizam ( Bulgarian : селски туризъм ), meaning "village tourism". In Russia, as of the 2010 Census , 26.3% of
1343-505: Is Yiddish, derived from the word shtot (town) with the suffix -l , a diminutive . Shtetlekh first began to appear in the 13th century, and were characteristic aspects of Jewish life in central and Eastern Europe until the 1940s. The shtetl occupies an important place in Jewish collective memory (particularly the history of Ashkenazi Jews) and has been depicted extensively in literature, visual art, theatre, and film, including such examples as
1422-618: 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
1501-420: Is administered according to traditions and customary law ( adat ), while a kelurahan is administered along more "modern" principles. Desa are generally located in rural areas while kelurahan are generally urban subdivisions. A village head is respectively called kepala desa or lurah . Both are elected by the local community. A desa or kelurahan is the subdivision of a kecamatan (district), in turn
1580-462: Is also valal (or valala ). Dedina is unrelated to the rarer east Slavic term derevna , which refers to a village with wooden ( derevo ) housing. In Bulgaria , the different types of sela vary from a small selo of 5 to 30 families to one of several thousand people. According to a 2002 census, in that year there were 2,385,000 Bulgarian citizens living in settlements classified as villages . A 2004 Human Settlement Profile on Bulgaria conducted by
1659-594: Is common for Vietnamese villagers to prefer to be buried in their village upon death. Selo ( Cyrillic : село; Polish : sioło ) is a Slavic word meaning "village" in Bosnia and Herzegovina , Bulgaria , Croatia , North Macedonia , Russia , Serbia , and Ukraine . For example, there are numerous sela (села; plural of selo ) called Novo Selo (Ново Село, "New Village") in Bulgaria , Croatia , Montenegro , Serbia , and North Macedonia . Another Slavic word for
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#17327661436811738-667: Is common to see a cemetery near the mosque. In Sarawak and East Kalimantan , some villages are called 'long', primarily inhabited by the Orang Ulu . Malaysian kampung were once aplenty in Singapore but there are almost no remaining kampung villages; the very few to have survived until today are mostly on outlying islands surrounding mainland Singapore, such as Pulau Ubin . Mainland Singapore used to have many kampung villages but modern developments and rapid urbanisation works have seen them bulldozed away; Kampong Lorong Buangkok
1817-492: Is compulsory for the Muslim pupils in the country, a mosque, and a community centre ( Malay : balai raya or dewan kemasyarakatan ). In Indonesia , depending on the principles they are administered, villages are called kampung or desa (or kelurahan for those with urban functions). A desa (a term that derives from a Sanskrit word meaning "country" that is found in the name " Bangladesh "= bangla and desh/desha )
1896-519: Is locally known by the Malay word kampung (also spelt as kampong ). They may be villages in the traditional or anthropological sense but may also comprise delineated residential settlements, both rural and urban. The community of a village is headed by a village head ( Malay : ketua kampung ). Communal infrastructure for the villagers may include a primary school, a religious school providing ugama or Islamic religious primary education which
1975-650: Is marked by kinship and exchange relations. Auyl ( Kazakh : Ауыл ) is a Kazakh word meaning "village" in Kazakhstan . According to the 2009 census of Kazakhstan, 42.7% of Kazakhstani citizens (7.5 million people) live in 8172 different villages. To refer to this concept along with the word "auyl" often used the Slavic word "selo" in Northern Kazakhstan. In mainland China , villages 村 are divisions under township Zh:乡 or town Zh:镇 . In
2054-579: Is often referred to in English as a "settlement". In the new law about populated places in Ukraine the term "selyshche", has a specific meaning. In the past the word "selyshche" was more ambiguous and there were distinction between rural selyshche and selyshche miskoho typu ( urban-type settlement ), abbreviated smt in Ukrainian. There we also dacha , fisherman, etc. selyshches The khutir ( хутір ) and stanytsia ( станиця ) are not part of
2133-552: 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
2212-593: Is the last surviving village on the country's mainland. The term "kampung", sometimes spelled "kampong", is one of many Malay words to have entered common usage in Malaysia and Singapore. Locally, the term is frequently used to refer to either one's hometown or a rural village, depending on the intended context. In urban areas of the Philippines , the term "village" most commonly refers to private subdivisions, especially gated communities . These villages emerged in
2291-485: Is very common for villagers to produce their own food. As prosperous urbanites purchase village houses for their second homes, Russian villages sometimes are transformed into dacha settlements, used mostly for seasonal residence. The historically Cossack regions of Southern Russia and parts of Ukraine , with their fertile soil and absence of serfdom , had a rather different pattern of settlement from central and northern Russia. While peasants of central Russia lived in
2370-498: Is worshiped, a common well, "đồng lúa" ( rice field), "chùa" (temple) and houses of all families in the village. All the people in Vietnam's villages usually have a blood relationship. They are farmers who grow rice and have the same traditional handicraft . Vietnam's villages have an important role in society (Vietnamese saying: "Custom rules the law" -"Phép vua thua lệ làng" [literally: the king's law yields to village customs]). It
2449-462: The English language ) for "a Malay hamlet or village in a Malay-speaking country". In Malaysia, a kampung is determined as a locality with 10,000 or fewer people. Since historical times, every Malay village came under the leadership of a penghulu (village chief), who has the power to hear civil matters in his village (see Courts of Malaysia for more details). A Malay village typically contains
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2528-560: The Lincolnshire Wolds , the villages are often found along the spring line halfway down the hillsides, and originate as spring line settlements , with the original open field systems around the village. In northern Scotland , most villages are planned to a grid pattern located on or close to major roads, whereas in areas such as the Forest of Arden , woodland clearances produced small hamlets around village greens. Because of
2607-530: The People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War . In addition to the geographical mainland, the geopolitical sense of the term includes islands such as Hainan , Chongming , and Zhoushan . By convention, territories outside of mainland China include: In Taiwan it is also often used to refer to all territories administered by the PRC. The term is widely used in all of
2686-464: The Republic of China ( Taiwan ), villages are divisions under townships or county-administered cities . The village is called a tsuen or cūn (村) under a rural township (鄉) and a li (里) under an urban township (鎮) or a county-controlled city. See also Li (unit) . In Brunei , villages are officially the third- and lowest-level subdivisions of Brunei below districts and mukims . A village
2765-583: 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
2844-607: The Russian Empire , a volost , or its Soviet or modern Russian successor, a selsoviet , was typically headquartered in a selo and embraced a few neighboring villages. In the 1960s–1970s, the depopulation of the smaller villages was driven by the central planners' drive in order to get the farm workers out of smaller, " prospectless " hamlets and into the collective or state farms ' main villages or even larger towns and cities , with more amenities. Most Russian rural residents are involved in agricultural work, and it
2923-484: The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs stated that: The most intensive is the migration "city – city". Approximately 46% of all migrated people have changed their residence from one city to another. The share of the migration processes "village – city" is significantly less – 23% and "city – village" – 20%. The migration "village – village" in 2002
3002-628: The administrative division any longer, primarily due to collectivization . Khutirs were very small rural localities consisting of just few housing units and were sort of individual farms. They became really popular during the Stolypin reform in the early 20th century. During the collectivization, however, residents of such settlements were usually declared to be kulaks and had all their property confiscated and distributed to others ( nationalized ) without any compensation. The stanitsa likewise has not survived as an administrative term. The stanitsa
3081-493: The inland but still translated mainland in English, is commonly applied by SAR governments to represent non-SAR areas of PRC, including Hainan province and coastal regions of mainland China, such as "Constitutional and Mainland Affairs" ( 政制及內地事務局 ) and Immigration Departments. In the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (as well as the Mainland and Macau Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement )
3160-479: The northern and central regions , Azores Islands and in the Alentejo . Most of them have a church and a "Casa do Povo" (people's house), where the village's summer romarias or religious festivities are usually held. Summer is also when many villages are host to a range of folk festivals and fairs, taking advantage of the fact that many of the locals who reside abroad tend to come back to their native village for
3239-578: The "government of China". With the democratisation of Taiwan in the 1990s and the rise of the Taiwanese independence movement, some people began simply using the term "China" instead. Due to their status as colonies of foreign states during the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the phrase "mainland China" excludes Hong Kong and Macau . Since the return of Hong Kong and Macau to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 and 1999 , respectively,
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3318-750: The CPG also uses the Chinese characters 内地 "inner land", with the note that they refer to the "customs territory of China". References to the PRC and other lost continental territories as the mainland began appearing in Taiwan state documents as early as 1954. Legal definitions followed in the 1990s. The 1991 Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China stated that "the handling of people's rights and obligations and other affairs between
3397-611: The Netherlands. A village in the UK is a compact settlement of houses, smaller in size than a town, and generally based on agriculture or, in some areas, mining (such as Ouston, County Durham ), quarrying or sea fishing. They are very similar to those in Ireland. The major factors in the type of settlement are: location of water sources, organization of agriculture and landholding, and likelihood of flooding. For example, in areas such as
3476-531: The PRC referring to itself as the "mainland side" dealing with the "Taiwan side"). In fact, the PRC government mandates that journalists use “Taiwan” and “the Mainland” (Dàlù) as corresponding concepts. But in terms of Hong Kong and Macau, the PRC government refers to itself as "the Central People's Government". In the People's Republic of China, the term 内地 (Nèidì, 'inland') is often contrasted with
3555-561: The People's Republic of China. The Exit and Entry Administration Law of the People's Republic of China ( Chinese : 中华人民共和国出境入境管理法 ) defines two terms in Chinese that are translated to "mainland": In the PRC, usage of the two terms is not strictly interchangeable. To emphasise the One-China policy and not give the ROC "equal footing" in cross-strait relations , the term must be used in PRC's official contexts with reference to Taiwan (with
3634-634: The Regulations on People Relations between Taiwan and mainland China defined the mainland as areas claimed but not controlled by the ROC, corresponding to "areas under control of the Chinese Communists " (within the de facto borders of the People's Republic of China ). Views of the term "mainland China" ( 中國大陸 ) vary on Taiwan. During the Dangguo era , the KMT had previously referred to
3713-701: The World , was created in 2001 on the initiative of the Tourism Council of the National Association of Italian Municipalities with the aim of preserving and maintaining villages of quality heritage. Founded to contribute to safeguarding, conserving and revitalizing small villages and municipalities, but sometimes even individual hamlets, which, being outside the main tourist circuits, they risk, despite their great value, being forgotten with consequent degradation, depopulation and abandonment. Its motto
3792-626: The above territories as well as internationally, including by many Overseas Chinese communities. In 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Liberation Army had largely defeated the Kuomintang (KMT)'s National Revolutionary Army in the Chinese Civil War . This forced the Kuomintang to relocate the government and institution of the Republic of China to the relative safety of Taiwan , an island which
3871-499: The beginning of 20th century. According to the 2011 census of India , 69% of Indians (around 833 million people) live in villages. As per 2011 census of India, there are a total of 649,481 villages in India .The size of these villages varies considerably. 236,004 Indian villages have a population of fewer than 500, while 3,976 villages have a population of 10,000+. Most of the villages have their own temple, mosque, or church, depending on
3950-414: The country's population lives in rural localities ; down from 26.7% recorded in the 2002 Census . Multiple types of rural localities exist, but the two most common are derevnya ( деревня ) and selo ( село ). Historically, the formal indication of status was religious: a city ( gorod , город ) had a cathedral , a selo had a church, while a derevnya had neither. The lowest administrative unit of
4029-435: The dwellings of a village are fairly close to one another, not scattered broadly over the landscape, as a dispersed settlement . In the past, villages were a usual form of community for societies that practice subsistence agriculture and also for some non-agricultural societies. In Great Britain , a hamlet earned the right to be called a village when it built a church . In many cultures, towns and cities were few, with only
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#17327661436814108-577: 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
4187-641: The free area and the mainland can be specially stipulated by law", and used the legal term "mainland area" without defining its geographical boundaries. The 1992 Regulations on the Relations between the People in Taiwan and the Mainland defined "Taiwan" as areas controlled by the ROC and "mainland" as "the territory of the Republic of China." The related Cross-Strait Act called those under PRC jurisdiction - excluding those in Hong Kong and Macau - as "people of
4266-510: The histories of Jewish communities destroyed during the Holocaust. The Insee classifies French communes into four groups according to population density: A commune in Group 3 or 4 is considered as a village ( commune rurale ). An independent association named Les Plus Beaux Villages de France (affiliated to the international association The Most Beautiful Villages in the World ),
4345-425: The holidays. In the flood-prone districts of the Netherlands, particularly in the northern provinces of Friesland and Groningen, villages were traditionally built on low man-made hills called terpen before the introduction of regional dyke-systems. In modern days, the term dorp (lit. "village") is usually applied to settlements no larger than 20,000, though there's no official law regarding status of settlements in
4424-400: 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
4503-454: The living quarters was farmed. Traditional fishing villages were based on artisan fishing and located adjacent to fishing grounds. In toponomastic terminology, the names of individual villages are called Comonyms (from Ancient Greek κώμη / village and ὄνυμα / name, [cf. ὄνομα]). From Middle English village , from Old French village , from Latin villāticus , ultimately from Latin villa (English villa ). In Afghanistan,
4582-662: The local religious following. The majority of Pakistanis live in rural areas. According to the 2017 census , about 64% of the Pakistani population lives in rural areas. Most rural areas in Pakistan tend to be near cities, and are peri-urban areas. This is due to the definition of a rural area in Pakistan being an area that does not fall within an urban boundary. A village is called deh or gaaon in Urdu . Pakistani village life
4661-727: The mainland area", and used " free area of the Republic of China " to describe areas under ROC control. The issue on the mainland's territory also stated in the Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 328 in 1993. In 2012, the Supreme Court of the Republic of China 's judgment #900 labeled the Macao Special Administrative Region as the "Mainland's Macau Area". The 2002 amendments to the Implementation Rules of
4740-412: The mid-20th century and were initially the domain of elite urban dwellers. Those are common in major cities in the country and their residents have a wide range of income levels. Such villages may or may not correspond to a barangay (the country's basic unit of government, also glossed as village), or be privately administered. Barangays correspond more to precolonial villages; the chairman (formerly
4819-720: The name like " Srinagar "= sri and nagar/nagari ). In some areas such as Tanah Toraja, elders take turns watching over the village at a command post. As a general rule, desa and kelurahan are groupings of hamlets ( kampung in Indonesian, dusun in Javanese , banjar in Bali). a kampung is defined today as a village in Brunei and Indonesia . Kampung is a term used in Malaysia , (sometimes spelling kampong or kompong in
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#17327661436814898-476: The north of the New Territories ). Additionally, the islands contained within Hong Kong (e.g. Hong Kong Island ) and Macau are much closer to mainland China than Taiwan and Hainan, and are much smaller. In Hong Kong and Macau, the terms "mainland China" and "mainlander" are frequently used for people from PRC-governed areas (i.e. not Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau). The Chinese term Neidi ( 內地 ), meaning
4977-481: The region and the settlement's market rights. Smaller villages usually do not have their own government. Instead, they are part ( Ortsteil ) of the municipality of a nearby town. In Italy, villages are spread throughout the country. No legal definition of village exists in Italian law; nonetheless, a settlement inhabited by less than 2000 people is usually described as "village". More often, Italian villages that are
5056-478: The rest of the PRC. Nonetheless, Hainanese people still refer to the geographic mainland as "the mainland" and call its residents "mainlanders". Before 1949, the Kinmen and Matsu islands, were jointly governed with the rest of Fujian Province under successive Chinese governments. The two territories are generally considered to belong to the same historical region, Fujian Province, which has been divided since 1949 as
5135-408: 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
5214-703: The subdivision of a kabupaten (regency) or kota (city). The same general concept applies all over Indonesia. However, there is some variation among the vast numbers of Austronesian ethnic groups. For instance, in Bali villages have been created by grouping traditional hamlets or banjar , which constitute the basis of Balinese social life. In the Minangkabau area in West Sumatra province, traditional villages are called nagari (a term deriving from another Sanskrit word meaning "city", which can be found in
5293-598: 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
5372-492: The term 境外 ('outside the border') for things outside the mainland region. Examples include "Administration of Foreign-funded Banks" ( 中华人民共和国外资银行管理条例 ; 中華人民共和國外資銀行管理條例 ) or the "Measures on Administration of Representative Offices of Foreign Insurance Institutions" ( 外国保险机构驻华代表机构管理办法 ; 外國保險機構駐華代表機構管理辦法 ). Hainan is an island, but is nevertheless commonly considered to be part of the "mainland" politically, because its government, legal and political systems do not differ from
5451-633: The term "China" ( 中國 ). The former term is generally preferred by the Pan-Blue Coalition led by the KMT, while the latter term is preferred by the Pan-Green Coalition led by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which opposes the term "mainland" and its suggestion that Taiwan is part of China. This has caused many political debates. Other geography-related terms which are used to avoid mentioning
5530-527: The territories under the control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by several different names, e.g. "(territory controlled by the) Communist bandits ", "occupied/unfree area (of China)", "Communist China" (as opposed to either "Nationalist China" or "Democratic China"), "Red China" (as opposed to "Blue China"), and "mainland China (area)". In modern times, many of these terms have fallen out of use. The terms "mainland China" ( 中國大陸 ) or "the mainland" ( 大陸 ) still remain in popular use, but some also simply use
5609-658: The topography of the Clent Hills the north Worcestershire village of Clent is an example of a village with no centre but instead consists of series of hamlets scattered on and around the Hills. 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
5688-425: 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. Mainland China " Mainland China ", also referred to as " the Chinese mainland ", is a geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of
5767-562: The two territories have retained their legal, political, and economic systems. The territories also have their distinct identities. Therefore, "mainland China" generally continues to exclude these territories, because of the " one country, two systems " policy adopted by the Chinese government towards the regions. The term is also used in economic indicators, such as the IMD Competitiveness Report. International news media often use "China" to refer only to mainland China or
5846-512: The village datu ) now settles administrative, intrapersonal, and political matters or polices the area though with much less authority and respect than in Indonesia or Malaysia. Village, or "làng", is a basis of Vietnam society. Vietnam's village is the typical symbol of Asian agricultural production. Vietnam's village typically contains: a village gate, "lũy tre" (bamboo hedges), "đình làng" (communal house) where "thành hoàng" ( tutelary god )
5925-633: The village, or deh ( Dari / Pashto : ده) is the mid-size settlement type in Afghan society, trumping the United States hamlet or qala ( Dari : قلعه, Pashto : کلي), though smaller than the town, or shār ( Dari : شهر, Pashto : ښار). In contrast to the qala , the deh is generally a bigger settlement which includes a commercial area, while the yet larger shār includes governmental buildings and services such as schools of higher education, basic health care, police stations etc. "The soul of India lives in its villages," declared Mahatma Gandhi at
6004-706: The writing of Mendele Mocher Sforim , Isaac Bashevis Singer , and Sholem Aleichem . Sholem Aleichem's Tevye the Dairyman stories, set in the fictional shtetl of Anatevka, were eventually adapted into the Fiddler on the Roof stage play (which itself was later adapted for film). During the Holocaust , most shtetlekh were depopulated of their Jewish communities through mass deportations or liquidations. Many are memorialized in yizkor books , written testimonies that describe
6083-567: Was placed under its control after the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II in 1945. With the establishment of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, the CCP-controlled government saw itself as the sole legitimate government of China, competing with the claims of the Republic of China, whose authority is now limited to Taiwan and other islands . This resulted in a situation in which two co-existing governments competed for international legitimacy and recognition as
6162-482: Was a type of a collective community that could include one or more settlements such as villages, khutirs , and others. Today, stanitsa -type formations have only survived in Kuban ( Russian Federation ) where Ukrainians were resettled during the time of the Russian Empire . A shtetl (plural shtetlekh ) was a small market town or village with a majority Jewish population in central and eastern Europe. The word shtetl
6241-453: Was created in 1982 to promote assets of small and picturesque French villages of quality heritage. As of July 2023, 172 villages in France have been listed in "The Most Beautiful Villages of France". In Germany a Dorf (village) usually consists of at least a few houses but can have up to a few thousand inhabitants. Larger villages can also be referred to as a Flecken or Markt depending on
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