Research Paper

The task is to study a whole settlement system. A settlement system is a system of regularized and repeated human interactions among a set of settlements (hamlets, villages, towns, cities), including those with rural or nomadic peoples and with nature. Settlement systems usually extend across the political boundaries of the polities in a region. Pick a particular settlement or location from which to start your study, and then study the whole system of which your targeted settlement is a part. Generally you will not want to study more than 100 years, but you can do a longer time period if information on your settlement system is scarce. Study changes in the size distribution of settlements in your system during the time period.

On April 14 please turn in a single sheet of paper with your name, email address and the name of the settlement you are going to study, and the time period. Also include the citations from two or three library sources of information about the settlement system you are going to study.

Data on the population sizes of the largest ancient cities are available from Tertius Chandler’s Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth. The population estimates for the cities in Chandler are in a machine-readable dataset called citypop5.xls that is accessible on the course web site. David Wilkinson’s maps of cities may also be helpful. These are at

https://irows.ucr.edu/research/citemp/asa01/wilkinson.htm

If you are studying a modern country, take into account the country’s position in the larger world-system, its prior history, and contending interests within the country (and elsewhere) that may explain why the city system develops in the way that it does. Also remember to examine the relationships between the settlements in the country with settlements in adjacent countries and further away. Examine the city-size distribution and changes the distribution of city sizes over time. Why did the largest cities become so large while other towns did not? Did the advantages of different sites change over time? If you are studying a modern country you should use data on the population sizes of the largest cities from the primacy_data.xls file and supplement these data as necessary for your country. Access the readme for this data file from the course web page.

Tell the story of the settlement system and suggest explanations for the patterns that you find. The finished paper should be no longer than 10 typewritten double-spaced pages. It is worth 25% of your grade in the class and is due on May 24.

Angkor wat