Settlement Patterns pg. 201-217
- Canada’s population is not evenly distributed across the country
- Mixedwood Plain ecozone (ours) has 50 000 times more people than the Taiga Codillera (Yukon / Northwest Territories)
- 14 million compared to 300 people
- Mixedwood Plain ecozone (ours) has 50 000 times more people than the Taiga Codillera (Yukon / Northwest Territories)
- Settlement Patterns: the arrangement of where people live on the earth or in a country and the factors that influence this arrangement
- Population Distribution: the pattern of where people live in a region or even in the entire country (2 main patterns)
- Dispersed Patterns: found in areas that have a strong agricultural base (people spread out on the farms in the region)
- Concentrated Patterns: areas where resources (and the economic opportunities and population that result) are focused in small areas
- Linear Pattern: develop in areas where the most important economic reasons for settlement exist in lines (along major highways or along the coast)
- A special kind of concentrated pattern
- Linear Pattern: develop in areas where the most important economic reasons for settlement exist in lines (along major highways or along the coast)
- Population Density: a mathematical calculation of the number of people who live in each square kilometre of land
- Draw examples of this on the board using Fig 18-2 page 203
- More than 90% of the population live within 600 km or the border with the United States (only 10% of Canada’s land area
- Rural Settlement: the settlement of areas outside cities and towns where population density is low and the settlement pattern is dispersed
- Most of Canada’s rural residents live in either the Mixedwood Plain or the Prairies because they have one of the three following patterns:
- The long lots of southern Quebec
- The concession system of southern Ontario
- The section system of the Prairies
- Survey System: pattern of land division used in an area
- Long Lots of Southern Quebec
- Settled before a survey system was in place
- Most important influence on the settlement was the agricultural resources of the area + transportation was mainly by water
- Long, thin farms along the St. Lawrence River
- Long Lots: settlement pattern in southern Quebec and some other areas of Canada where individual lots tend to be long and narrow and extend back from major rivers or roads
- Concession System of Southern Ontario
- Agricultural resources similar to southern Quebec
- Settlement occurred after a survey system was in place
- Roads and railways were available
- Variety of similar concession systems were used
- Type of survey system used in southern Ontario whereby land is divided by concession roads and side roads into squares and rectangles of varying sizes
- Groupings of concession blocks were called townships, with groups of townships called counties
- Section System of the Southern Prairies
- Surveyed before major settlement occurred, using a section system taken from the US
- Survey system in most of the Prairie Provinces with units of land, 1.6 km by 1.6 km (1 square mile). When settlers first arrived, they were given a quarter-section of land to farm
- The land was divided into blocks that were 9.6 km by 9.6 km in area, with each block divided into 36 sections. Each section was then divided into four lots called quarter-sections
- When the size of the land was deemed too small, some farmers began buying up their neighbours’ farms in a process called farm consolidation
- Surveyed before major settlement occurred, using a section system taken from the US
- There are pros and cons to each settlement pattern (long farms are closer to neighbours, but harder to farm, large farms are suited to modern machinery, but they are a long way from their neighbours etc)
- Scattered Settlements: settlement in the more isolated parts of Canada has occurred for 2 main reasons
- Resource-Based Settlement: settlement that is located in a certain area because of the resources that can be utilized there
- Service-Based Settlement: settlement that is located around the need for certain services (along major roads there could be motels, diners, and gas stations for transportation)
- Urbanization: the process by which an area changes from being rural to being urban
- Multiplier effect: total effect on the economy caused by an expansion or contraction in one part of it.
- A new mine employing 300 people may cause 900 other jobs to develop in manufacturing and services
- Hierarchy: system in which classes of status or authority are ranked one above the other
- There are high level services (tv production, large universities, specialized hospitals, professional sports teams or areas etc)
- Threshold Population: the number of people who are needed to support a given service
- Diversified Urban Centre: town or city that has a variety of basic urban functions
- Thunder Bay (A Transportation City)
- Proximity to the Canadian Shield, Lake Superior, and Prairie provinces allowed Thunder Bay to grow as a city dependent on transporting goods
- Fredericton (A Service Centre)
- The University of New Brunswick attracts students from all over the province, the rest of the country, and other countries
- Port Alberni (A Resource-Based Community)
- Surrounded by rich forests, which the town uses as a major resource for economic gains
- Sarnia (A Manufacturing Centre)
- Located near the small oil fields of southwestern Ontario, and grew as a city due to harvesting and selling of that oil