People and Settlement

Key Points:

1. The way we organised ourselves and our living spaces in a place is called a settlement. In a settlement we have different types of activities such as education, religious, commercial, among others.
2. For about 1.8 lakh years, human beings lived in bands of hunter gatherers. Its only about 10,000 years ago, humans have taken up agriculture which brought significant changes in the human lifestyles.
3. Site refers to the characteristics of the place, its topography, altitude, water characteristics, types of soils, security and shelter from natural forces and so on.
4. Situation describes the connections with other places.
5. Coastal regions held immense significance for colonial powers as they could build ports along the coastlines.
6. People have been increasingly taking up non-agriculture work, living in cities and towns. This phenomenon is called urbanisation.
7. In an Aerotropolis, the airport functions as a city with having a lot of facilities surrounding it.
8. Increasing urbanisation is not just about greater opportunities for people. It also results in a lot of problems.
9. As urban areas expand, the waste is increasingly pushed to rural areas where it is either just dumped or taken to waste treatment plants.
10. The level of poverty in urban areas is relatively lower than what is noticed in rural areas, there is a huge gap between the average income of a low income family and a high income family.

Key Words:

1. Settlement: The way we organise ourselves and our living spaces in a place is called a settlement. It is the act of settling down of people.
2. Site: Site refers to the characteristics of the place viz.- its topography, altitude, water characteristics i.e., the place with lakes, rivers, underground water, types of soils, security, shelter from natural force and so on. In early ages, places which had favorable water supply and good protection from invasions were preferred for settlement.
3. Situation: Situation describes the connections with other places. Places do not exist in isolation. They are in some way connected to other places.Ex: The ports would enable export of raw materials to other countries
4. Urban and Rural: Urban refers a location in city or town. Rural refers to characteristic of the countryside rather than the town.
5. Agglomeration: It is an extended city or town area comprising the built up area of a central place and any suburbs linked by continuous urban area.
6. Hierarchy: A Pyramid order of settlements. The bottom - most part of the pyramid shows the lowest level of the settlement hierarchy and the top most shows highest level. At higher level there are Mega cities and at the bottom of the pyramid lie Hamlets (A group of houses with in the revenue village).
7. Mega Cities: A metropolitan area with a population more than ten million people.
8. Aerotropolis: A new kind of settlements which are centered around large airports. Aerotropolis means the airport city.
9. Urbanisation: The physical growth of the urban areas due to changes in settlement preferences, which is an ongoing worldwide phenomenon.
10. Metropolitan City: Cities having population between one million to 10 million, which exercises a commanding social and economic influence. Ex: Chennai, Hyderabad.

                                                 Essay Answer Questions
1) How human life style change with settlement?

1. For about 1.8 lakh years human lived in bands as hunter-gathers. Owing to changes in the obtaining of food, some bands took to the deliberate production of food through agriculture. This change had ushered in a civilisational shift and brought many changes in human lifestyles. As agriculturalists, they have stopped moving from one place to another.
2. As agriculture progressed, people organised their life around patterns observed in nature. As population increased, more occupational specializations such as weaving, pot making and metal work were introduced.
3. The number and variety of goods produced increased and so did the trade in them. Rulers began to encourage crafts persons to settle in urban areas.
4. Urban settlements i.e. towns where people did not work in agriculture expanded.
5. As settlements became larger, they also became more complex because there were other functions to be performed and food production was not the only concern. Within each settlement, people specialised in certain skills. Many goods were produced for the market and sold to traders who carried them far off places.
6. As a result of plenty hours of leisure time, number of arts like music, dance, painting, sculpture, sports came into existence. People improved other systems like educational institutions, healthcare, transportation and communication systems.
7. Population growth is more in towns and cities as a consequence of natural growth in the urban areas. But lack of basic infrastructure and amenities, the poor in the urban areas are living in impoverished conditions.

2. Define site features and situation features. Given one example from the place you live in?

1. Site refers to the characteristics of the place, its topography, altitude, water characteristics, soil types, security and protection from natural forces and so on.
2. Situation describes the connections of a place with other places. Places do not exist in isolation; they are always connected to other places.
3. Examples for the site and situation features of the place where I live as follows:
   1. Topography of Andhra Pradesh: it lies between 12°41’ and 22 ° North latitude and 77 ° and 84°40’ East longitude and is bordered by Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Orissa in the south and Karnataka to the west.
   2. AP has got a coastline of around 972km which is the 2nd longest coastline in the country.
   3. Clay soil, black cotton soils, delta location are the examples for site features of the place.
   4. Connected to other place through Chennai and Kolkata national highways, having sea links through Visakhapatnam and Kakinada ports are the examples for situation features.