Rural settlements in India can broadly be put into four types-

• Clustered, agglomerated or nucleated,

• Semi-clustered or fragmented,

• Hamleted, and

• Dispersed or isolated.

Clustered Settlements

• Is compact or closely built up area of houses.

• The general living area is distinct and separated from the surrounding farms, barns and pastures.

• The intervening streets present some recognisable patter or geometric shape, such as rectangular, radial, linear, etc.

• Are generally found in fertile alluvial plains and in the north-eastern states.

• This type of settlement is preferred for

o Security or defence reasons: in Bundelkhand region of central India and Nagaland.

o Scarcity of water: in Rajasthan where water scarcity has necessitated compact settlement for maximum utilisation of water resources.

Semi-Clustered Settlements

• Result from the tendency of clustering in a restricted area of a dispersed settlement.

• Often such settlement patter may result from segregation or fragmentation of a large compact village.

• For instance, one or more sections of the village society choose or is forced to live a little away from the main cluster or village.

• Generally, the land-owning and dominant community occupies the main village, whereas people of lower strata of society and menial workers settle on the outer flanks of the village.

• Are widespread in the Gujarat plains and some parts of Rajasthan.

Hamleted Settlements

• Settlements, sometimes, are fragmented into several units physically separated from each other bearing a common name.

• This segmentation of a large village is often motivated by social and ethnic factors.

• Are more frequently found in middle and lower Ganga plains, Chhattisgarh and lower valleys of the Himalayas.

Dispersed Settlements

• Common in the form of isolated huts or hamlets of a few huts in remote jungles, or on small hills with farms or pasture on the slopes.

• Extreme dispersion of settlement is often caused by extremely fragmented nature of the terrain and land resource base of habitable areas.

• Found in areas of Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala