The following settlement hierarchy is adapted from the work of
Konstantinos Apostolos Doxiadis for the actual current world situation as of 2010, as opposed to Doxiadis'
idealized settlement hierarchy for the year 2100 that he outlined in his 1968 book
Ekistics. As an example population criteria for each category of settlement might be different depending on context. In this example, a
roadhouse is at the lowest level while the
ecumenopolis is at the top with the greatest number of residents:
Minuscule density: Fewer than 1,000 Less than one thousand residents. At this number, settlements are too small or scattered to be considered "urban", and services within these settlements (if any) are generally limited to bare essentials: e.g.,
church,
grocery store,
post office, etc. Throughout most of human history, very few settlements could support a population greater than 150 people. •
Village or
Tribe a village is a human settlement or community that is larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town. The population of a village varies; the average population can range in the hundreds. Anthropologists regard the number of about 150 members for tribes as the maximum for a functioning human group. •
Hamlet or
Band a hamlet has a tiny population (often fewer than 100, but sometimes more), with only a few buildings. A social band are the simplest level of foraging societies with generally a maximum size of 30 to 50 people; consisting of a small kin group, no larger than an
extended family or
clan. •
Homestead or
Neighbourhood a homestead usually consists of a cluster of isolated dwellings normally occupied by a single
extended family, normally would only have one to five buildings or elementary families. •
Roadhouse or
Bed and breakfast a roadhouse is a small
mixed-use premises typically built on or near a major road in a
sparsely populated area or an isolated
desert region that services the passing travellers, providing food, drinks, accommodation, fuel, and parking spaces to the guests and their vehicles. The premises generally consists of just a single dwelling, permanently occupied by a
nuclear family, usually between two and five family members. A roadhouse is often considered to be the smallest type of
human settlement.
Low density: 1,000 to 100,000 residents Less than one hundred thousand residents. Common "city features" and
third place services such as clinics, pharmacy, bank,
supermarket, police station,
fire station, schools, residential neighborhoods, restaurant, etc. become less available as size reduces. Density may be sufficient to support local
commercial areas which may include a "Main Street" or a
shopping mall. •
Town •
Satellite town or
Locality a small mixed-use town or residential area, existing as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city.
Lower medium density: 100,000 to 250,000 residents At this density, there is ready access to less specialized services but residents may need to travel to a larger city in some circumstances. •
Town: Towns are generally larger than
villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world.
Upper medium density: quarter million to one million residents At this density, there is ready access to more specialized
advanced services (e.g. doctors, mechanics, colleges, etc.) due to
economies of agglomeration, and enables
economies of scale and for things like efficient transportation, utilities, telecommunications, fiber optics, and infrastructure that initially cost more to provide outside of urban context. •
Regiopolis or
City a large city with a large population and many services. The population is less than one million but more than a quarter of a million people.
High density: more than one million residents At this density, the settlement's population, spheres of influence, and
gross domestic product tends to exceed that of most countries with lesser density. The need for
administrative divisions,
public transportation,
public infrastructure and other government
public services is critically essential for the
sustainable growth and continued prosperity of its citizens. High income jobs and non-essential luxury services are abundant (e.g. car dealerships, brain surgery centers, airports, financing, computer stores, coffee shops, etc.) as these cannot be sustained by lesser density. Medium income exceeds national average. The first city in recorded history to reach a population of one million residents was
Ancient Rome in 133 B.C. During the
Second Industrial Revolution, London, England reached the mark in 1810 and New York City, United States made it in 1875. The main type at this level is the •
Conurbation or
metropolis a consolidating regional urban area or
catchment area, the metropolitan area, consisting of possibly a central city,
suburbs and
satellite towns or cities, with a population usually reaching one million or more people. Larger types at this level would be: •
Megalopolis or
Megacity contains more than ten million residents in total and is often a conurbation or metropolis grown into a continuous
urban area.
Extreme density: more than one billion residents •
Ecumenopolis – a theoretical construction invented in 1967 by the
Greek city planner
Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis, in which the entire surface area of Earth is taken up by
human settlements, or at least, that those are linked so that to create urban areas so big that they can shape an urban continuum through thousands of kilometers which cannot be considered as a megalopolis. • Doxiadis also conjectured the "
eperopolis"gigacities in excess of one billion population, in which an entire continental region is an unbroken continuum of
human settlements. ==Settlement hierarchy by country==