Settlement changes in the Bagamoyo district of Tanzania as a consequence of villagization

Abstract

Changes in the distribution, location and grouping of settlement together with the organization structure of the rural areas following the villagization programme carried out in Tanzania in 1973–77 are described and analysed.The observations are based largely on fieldwork in Bagamoyo District, although maps and air photographs, and to a lesser extent official statistics have also been used. Prior to villagization about a half of the local population lived in small, scattered habitations, and it was only in the north of the area that fairly large nucleated villages had been preserved as the main mode of settlement. Some drift of population towards the main communication routes had begun to take place before the implementation of the villagization scheme itself, however, and the new measures brought this rapidly to its culmination by concentrating the population in large villages close to the main roads, leaving vast areas of the countryside uninhabited. Just as the traditional settlement had favoured the high ground, with its fields in the low‑lying areas, so the new settlement also spread to the high land, while the depressions were cleared for cultivation. Since migrants were in the habit of settling on the edge of the village nearest to the direction from which they moved, the villages tended to expand in a stellate pattern along the roads running in these directions. A clear grouping of the inhabitants according to place of origin, tribe and family is observable within the villages. A synthesis of the results is provided in the form of models depicting the changes which occurred in the area.