Dispersed Settlement and Lts Relation to the Surface Configuration on the Deltaic Plain of Kanto

Abstract

For the approach to the reasons of dwelling dispersion, it is fundamentally necessary that the settled order should be made clear by tracing back to the early stage of the reclamation and throughout the progress. From this point, the writer researched into the dispersed settlement on the deltaic plain between two rivers, the Edo and the Furutone, Kanto lowland. The following conclusions were reached: 1. The pioners located their homes apart from one another and rarely adjoined besides the line villages. This dispersion of the pioneers resulted from selecting the highest island-like embankment in order to secure their farmsteads from flood waters. When the embankment was too lower to avoid flood, the dweller still more raised up the ground artificially. 2. The community in this region is chiefly organized with the relation of head and branch, so the reasons for the dispersed dwelling can be attainable through the branching of the families. Distinguishing the families in the same lineage and ranging them in settled order, and then drawing them on the map, the settlement growth and especially where the branch families select as the house sites are made clear. These distribution types are classified as follows; (A) scattering type of branch families, (B) adjoining type of a branch family to its head family, (C) adjoining type of a branch family to another. 3. Classifying the own-fields of the dispersed branch families by distribution, two types are recognized; (a) concentrated type around the house site or stretched type in front of his house site, and (b) remote type. The latter is subdivided into three types; (1) scattered type, (2) distant and yet concentrated type, (3) two groups type in front and at a distance. Each of these types is exemplified in Fig. 3, 4 and 5. When the dwelling is located in the center of the own-fields the most convenience of farming is given. In this region, however, some of the dispersed branch families have the fields in type of remoteness and scattering, because they can not get at will the favorable elevated house site everywhere. © 1955, The Human Geographical Society of Japan. All rights reserved.