Types of Rural Settlement
People living in rural areas tend to have one of two basic forms of settlement. Worldwide, the more common is known as "clustered" or "nucleated" settlement. People live close to one another in villages, and land surrounding the settlements does not contain dwellings. This is the prevailing form for rural settlement in much of Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
In contrast, "dispersed" settlement is more common in rural areas in the United States and parts of Canada and Australia. In this type of settlement dwellings are spread across the landscape and spaced fairly far apart.
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