[Ar.satish lohar]

Hierarchy of Settlements

A hierarchy of settlements will help determine the level of growth that will be allocated. The proposed hierarchy is based on the number of key facilities and services available in settlements, and information on employment and travel to work. This is for keeping the ‘functional’ approach to planning. It is the role and function of a settlement that will determine its position in a hierarchy and not its population size.

[Abha Sharma]

Settlements are differing in size and functions based upon physio-historic and socio-economic conditions, but they can be graded and grouped in the hierarchical order in any regional set up. The spatial organisation of growth centres and their orders distributed in geographic space is the main consideration in the present study. Hence, the gradation and re-grouping of the growth centres into of size classes is termed as hierarchy. 
A character of central places to serve their respective surrounding, territory in terms of cultural, commercial and administrative requirements. Over the past 50 years, location, allocation analyses have developed a variety of models termed ‘hierarchical’ in that they incorporate multiple levels of either goals or facilities