Human settlement

In archaeology, the term settlement serves as a neutral designation for any site with houses, huts or other structures that served residential purposes. The length of stay can range from a few days to several centuries, if not millennia (tell). Individual houses are also referred to as settlements. The term village implies the existence of shared structures or facilities.

Settlements are divided into different settlement forms (synonymously settlement types). These can occur in pure form, but most often several settlement types are mixed, especially when settlements grow.

Often in larger municipalities, different settlement forms coexist. When 11 million displaced persons had to be accommodated in Germany in the immediate post-war period, new housing estates with uniform house types ("Siedlungshaus") were built, often along a road on the periphery of the villages. The population of many villages in rural areas doubled in the course of the settlement construction of the 1950s.

New housing also had to be created for the Aussiedler and Spätaussiedler who arrived in the 1990s and 2000s. In addition, there were comparatively few single-family homes in the new federal states. Thus, after reunification, new "housing estates" were created again, but they were more individual and spacious than after the war.

Differentiation according to the size of the settlement

Even a plot of land with a single inhabited building can be a settlement. A single settlement comprises a single building or two neighbouring buildings, a hamlet consists of a few buildings. For very small settlements with only one or a few buildings, there are various designations, some of which are only regionally common, such as homestead or wasteland.

In order to achieve international official statistical comparability, the United Nations Statistical Commission has defined a smallest settlement geographic unit, the "settlement unit" (SE). The lower limit is adapted to the settlement structure of the state.

In the topographical settlement designation of Statistics Austria, a distinction is made:

• Single courtyard, single house, solitary, single layer: one or two neighbouring buildings
• hamlet: three to nine buildings (in a narrower location, otherwise about rotte, group of houses, scattered houses)
• Village: enclosed place with ten or more buildings (grown, otherwise like Rotte, group of houses, scattered houses)

Especially in northern Germany, Flecken is a term for a smaller but locally significant settlement. It can be a village or a town or even a district.

Small settlements above a certain size are called "village", medium and large settlements are called "town". However, this rough distinction does not always correspond to the realities in practice. Village is a term of rural settlement structure, and the right to use the designation town in Europe is not directly dependent on the number of inhabitants, but on the town law (the Croatian town Hum has about 17 inhabitants).

In Germany, a distinction is made according to the number of inhabitants - provided that the settlement bears the title "town":

• Rural town: under 5,000 inhabitants
• Small town: 5,000-19,999 inhabitants
• Medium-sized city: 20,000-99,999 inhabitants
• Large city: 100,000 inhabitants and more

Cities with more than 1 million inhabitants are referred to as megacities, and agglomerations above this are referred to as mega-cities. The term metropolis does not refer to the size of a city alone. A metropolis is a large city that forms a political, social, cultural and economic centre of a region or country.

Differentiation according to the arrangement of the buildings

Newly built settlements often have very special shapes. Over time, however, the characteristic form often disappears. But especially in village settlement forms, the form often remains for a long time.

The following forms are distinguished:

• Arcology: A form of settlement built according to ecological principles, which consists of a single huge building complex.
• Dike row settlement: a row of houses moved behind the dike during high medieval land development.
• Fortress City: A Settlement that was built primarily for defensive purposes. Fortress Cities are notable for their huge fortifications, to which all further planning must be subordinated.
• Garden city: A very extensive form of settlement in which urban and rural living are to be combined.
• Structured city: In this type of settlement, the areas of living, working and recreation are strictly separated from each other.
• Geometric city: A city built according to geometric principles. For example, the streets may be arranged at right angles, or in a circular or radial pattern around a center point.
• Haufendorf: In this type of settlement, the buildings are all built close together without following a geometric order.
• Row village: A very narrow and elongated settlement form. Often with fields directly behind the houses.
• Marsh village: A row village following a drainage ditch in the marshland.
• Street village: A settlement in which all the buildings line a single street.
• Waldhufendorf: A row village on a clearing.
• Hagenhufendorf: A terraced hoofed village on a watercourse with hedgerows between the properties.
• Platzdorf
• Rundling: Smaller settlements in which all buildings are arranged around a central square or building.
• Wurtendorf: A round village built on an artificial hill.
• Kraal: African settlement form
• Angerdorf: In the centre of the village there is a community square.
• Scattered settlement: The buildings are distributed in a disorderly manner over a large area.

Differentiation according to the type of development

Examples of naming according to the type of construction of the apartments or houses:

• Cave settlement: The houses were hewn out of solid rock.
• High-rise housing estate: The estate consists mainly of high-rise buildings.
• Large housing estate
• Industrial Estate: Industrial estates are mainly made up of factories and tenement blocks.
• Mixed area: Area with residential and commercial businesses (mixture of residential area and commercial area)
• Row house settlement­: A settlement of row houses.
• Eco-settlement: Settlement built according to ecological criteria.
• Villa Suburb

Differentiation according to social aspects

Examples of settlements where only people who meet certain criteria live, or where special rules apply:

• Workers' settlement
• Homeowner Settlement
• Railroad Settlement
• Holiday settlement: This settlement is only inhabited by holidaymakers during their holidays.
• Refugee settlement
• Kibbutz: cooperatively organized settlement in Israel in which the inhabitants live and work as a collective.
• War Injuries Settlement