Settlement Hierarchy

Settlements come in all shapes and sizes, from small villages to large cities. The photographs to the right show the centre of a large city, in this case Bristol and a small village in Lancashire.

As you would expect, a large city will contain many more shops, services and businesses (functions) than a small village. A large city will also have a wider range of functions, for example shops selling big items such as furniture and cars.

High and low order functions

High order functions include large items such as cars or furniture which people will not buy very often. People are often prepared to travel a greater distance to buy high order items.

Low order items include goods such as newspapers or milk. Most settlements will have shops selling low order items and people will often only travel a short distance to buy them. Low order items are often bought on a daily or weekly basis.

Activity

Download the functional matrix to the right. You will need to change the settlement names to those which are in your area. The example matrix to the right is for Blackburn area. Use a Yellow page or other directory to find out which settlements have each function. Shade in the box if the settlement has that shop or service.

Once you have identified the functions in each settlement, you can draw colour coded circles on a simple map to illustrate the number of functions in each settlement.

For example, but you can change this Green 0 - 5 functions Blue 6-10 functions Red 11-20 functions Black 21 functions and over