(a) Identify three types of rural settlements and describe the main characteristics of each (b) In what four ways are rural and urban settlements interdepen...

Answer Details

(a) Three types of rural settlement and their characteristics

• Nucleated (clustered) settlement: houses are grouped closely together in a compact village, often around a central feature such as a market, well, church or road junction; farmland lies around the built-up cluster. It develops where water is localised or for defence and social convenience.
• Dispersed (scattered) settlement: individual houses/farmsteads are spread widely apart, each standing on its own farmland, with no central cluster. It is common where water is widely available and land is farmed individually.
• Linear (ribbon) settlement: houses are strung out in a line along a road, river bank, coast or valley, one or two buildings deep, following the line of the routeway or water body.

(Other acceptable type: compact/roadside or planned settlement.)

(b) Four ways rural and urban settlements are interdependent

• Food supply: rural areas produce food and raw materials for the urban population and for urban industries.
• Market and manufactured goods: urban centres provide a market for rural produce and supply the countryside with manufactured goods and equipment.
• Labour and services: rural areas supply labour and migrants to the towns, while towns provide higher-order services (hospitals, higher schools, banks, administration) used by rural dwellers.
• Employment and remittances: town-dwellers send money (remittances) back to rural relatives, and both are linked by transport, trade and communication networks.