Rural Land Organization

Metes and Bounds

• Used in England and 13 colonies• Uses physical features along withdirections and boundaries• “Metes” means measurementon a straight run• “Bounds” means boundaries(ie: wall, road, river, etc.)

Metes and Bounds

Long Lot

• The cultural landscape of Burgundy, France reflects the Long Lot Survey system, as land is divided into long, narrow parcels. People live in nucleated villages and land ownership is highly fragmented.

• Found today in French Canada and Louisiana

Long Lot

Township and Range• Surveyed land based on longitudeand latitude. • Broke up into square-mile sections• Sections dispersed around townships• Midwest part of U.S.• 1862 Homestead Act allowed up to 160 surveyed acres per

settler as long as they lived on and cultivated the land for 5 years. This broke up most of the Mid-West and Western States into the Township and Range System.

• Township and Range system in Washington State:http://www.ecy.wa.gov/services/gis/maps/wria/townships/trs.htm

Township and Range

The cultural landscape of Garden City, Iowa reflects the Township and Range system. Townships are 6x6 miles and section lines are every 1 mile.

Township and Range

Agricultural Villages •Nucleated settlement-intense cultivation with homes clustered in a village-most of the world’s farms are nucleated. •Dispersed settlement-individual farm house widely spaced-North America •Linear Village-follows a stream or road •Cluster Village-(nucleated) intersection of roads •Round Village-to corral livestock (rundling-Slavic farmers) •Walled Village-e.g. Medieval Europe •Grid Village-Spanish colonial villages & modern day planned-towns

Nucleated Settlement

• Early England• Houses and fields surround a church• Sometimes has a village green and/or open

fields

Dispersed Settlement

• Separate farms scattered around • Rural England, 13 colonies, opposite

Nucleated Settlements

Linear Village (Long lot)

Cluster Village

• Pattern established in English rural landscape, it reflects the historical pattern of growth through establishment of satellite settlements.

Newfane, Vermont, a New England clustered settlement. Public buildings are grouped around a common, including the courthouse in the (foreground), church (right), and Union Hall (background, opposite the courthouse).

Round/Circular VillageToday, mostly found in Sub-Saharan Africa ↓

Walled Village

Round and Walled

Grid Village