Cognised existence: Populated areas are settlement entities (city, town, village, hamlet, urban area) represented as points or polygons.
Question: Where are villages, towns, and cities, and what is their settlement hierarchy?
OSM wiki: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:place
Realisations
OpenStreetMap — settlement entities via place=*
OSM models settlements directly using place tags. This is suitable for settlement hierarchy mapping and nearest-settlement analysis.
osmnx access
import osmnx as ox
ox.settings.cache_folder = ".cache/"
settlements = ox.features_from_place(
"Denmark",
tags={"place": ["city", "town", "village", "hamlet", "suburb"]},
)Geofabrik layer
gis_osm_places_free_1.shp — place points with optional attributes such as population.
Key OSM tags
| Tag | Meaning |
|---|---|
place=city | Major settlement |
place=town | Town |
place=village | Village |
place=hamlet | Hamlet |
place=suburb | Suburb/neighborhood |
population=* | Optional settlement population estimate |
Natural Earth — ne_10m_populated_places, ne_10m_urban_areas
Natural Earth provides globally consistent settlement points and generalized urban area polygons for small-scale mapping.
Python load
import geopandas as gpd
places = gpd.read_file("ne_10m_populated_places.shp")
urban_areas = gpd.read_file("ne_10m_urban_areas.shp")
major_cities = places[places["SCALERANK"] <= 2]Key attributes
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
NAME | Settlement name |
FEATURECLA | Feature class |
SCALERANK | Cartographic prominence rank |
POP_MAX | Maximum population estimate |
ADM0NAME | Country name |
Geometry Representations
| Rep ID | Source Dataset | Geometry Type | Native CRS | Suitable For | Not Suitable For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
settlements_osm_points | OSM via Geofabrik | Point | EPSG:4326 | Settlement hierarchy mapping, nearest settlement analysis | Official census totals or demographic structure |
settlements_ne_10m_points | Natural Earth populated places | Point | EPSG:4326 | Global city hierarchy maps, small-scale settlement context | Local-level settlement completeness |
settlements_ne_10m_urban_areas | Natural Earth urban areas | Polygon | EPSG:4326 | Broad urban footprint context at global scale | Legal urban boundaries or municipal planning precision |
Limitations
- OSM and Natural Earth settlement layers are not official census registers.
- Settlement class definitions vary by country and mapping conventions.
- Use statistical population grids or census datasets for demography and density metrics.
Related Leaves
Realised By Links
- OpenStreetMap (collection)
- Natural Earth (collection)
- Natural Earth (owner)