Settlements

People settle in areas where the resources they need are easily accessible. Let's take tribes living in the River Amazon's basin. They would choose where to settle depending on the following factors in relation to the easy of accessibility to these resources; rivers for food/water, fertile soil for growing crops or elevated ground for defensive observation's (to warn the tribe's members of attacks from neighbouring tribes or predators) and a vantage point of the surrounding area. Compare this to the reasons people would settle in a particular area of a developed country. I'll use Ireland as the example for this. In Ireland people would settle near valued services. These services could include; shopping areas, open space for recreation and in a short commute's distance to their work place. Now lets move over to the Maasai tribes of Tanzania. The Maasai are desert nomads (people who don't have a fixed accommodation) who migrate around Tanzania's sands. When deciding upon where they should settle (for a short period of time) their needs are a lot more different than those of the people living in a developed situation or those living in the lush amazon basin. When the Maasai decide to settle somewhere they look for a place where there is a large amount of shade (such as under a tree) and protection from nocturnal predators (this defensive structure would consist of a 'wall' of thorned branches surrounding their camp) so the resources for that would need to be easily accessible to the builders of this wall. That just shows how the consideration of choosing where to settle is very different for each group of people around this diverse world.