
Village Life
Landscape and soil conditions were the keys to village structures and the forms of agricultural exploitation.
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Village structures and their social regimes.
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Confessions and village life. (Evangelical and Calvinists, Jews, Catholics, Mennonites and dissenting Protestants.)
Feature:
Wurten (Warfen)
Moor colonies
Fehnsiedlungen
Sielhafen
Flurnamensammlungen
Ortschroniken
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Occupation and agricultural data by Kreis
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Livestock markets.
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Settlement Types
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Village typology based on housing pattern
Einzelhof (farmstead) = present on new and old Marsch, Geest, and low Moor.
Haufensiedlung (cluster village) = old Marsch, interior of Geest, none on Moor.
Reihen- or Hufensiedlung (row or chain village) = new Marsch, west side of East Frisian Geest, the high Moor.
Schwarmsiedlung (dispersed village) = Geest and high Moor.
Fehnsiedlung (fen village) = on High Moor.
Village typology based on field (Flur) form
Reihenform = Hufendorf (in Marsch, Marschhufendorf, ex. Landschaftspolder).
Reihenform on Geest = long, narrow, rectangular fields (called "Upstreet"); was a late medieval colonization form common along Weser and Elbe coast.
Blockform = Haufendorf (or Warfdorf)
Kämpe = Geesthaufensiedlung (also called Gaste).
Fehnform = on High Moor, rectangular, more broad than wide, not greater than 10 ha. differs from Reihenform in that it has canals.
Village typology based on shape
Runddorf (i.e, Rysum) = a special subset of Haufendorf with a round format.
Länglich-rundendorf = a special subset of Haufendorf with an oval format (i.e., Hamswehrum).
Fehnkolonie = a Reihendorf situated along a canal with secondary canals (Wiecken) for property lines
Size and distribution of villages by landscape type in Ostfriesland
area square km % settlements number %
Marsch 1137.06 36.6 570 43.0
Geest 1091.25 35.1 631 47.7
Moor 764.04 24.5 108 8.2
Inseln 118.13 3.8 15 1.1
TOTAL 3110.48 100 1324 100
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Distribution of population by settlement size in Ostfriesland
settlement size population percentage
individual 1 - 50 772 58.3
small 51 - 1000 524 39.6
medium 1001 - 2000 161 1.2
large 2001 - 5000 8 0.6
largest > 5000 4 0.3
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Distribution of population by landscape type in Ostfriesland
settlement size Marsch Geest Moor Inseln
# % # % # % # %
individual 417 73.2 329 52.1 18 16.7 8 53.3
small 149 26.0 288 45.7 82 75.9 5 33.3
medium 2 0.4 9 1.4 6 5.6 0 0
large 1 0.2 2 0.3 2 1.8 2 13.4
largest 1 0.2 3 0.5 0 0 0 0
TOTAL 570 100 631 100 108 100 15 100
population 71,670 29 124,701 50 43,677 17.5 8,724 3.5
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