District networks of rural settlement in Uzbekistan: Classification and spatial differentiation

The article presents the classification of the rural settlement network by the rural administrative districts of Uzbekistan. The classification criteria were the population of rural settlements and their density. At the same time, the division of villages into small (up to 1000 people), medium (1000–3000 people), large (3000–5000 people) and very large (over 5000 people) adopted in Uzbekistan was taken into account, in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Urban Development of the Republic of Uzbekistan. At the same time, because of the small number of large villages, they are combined with the class of large villages. Classes of rural settlements, which make up more than 33% of the total number of villages in a given district, are identified as dominant. Based on the grouping of districts by dominant classes of villages, seven classes of district networks of rural settlements were identified. Within each class, subclasses of settlement networks were identified based on the average density of villages per 1000 hectares of arable land compared to the national average (2.2 villages) for this indicator. The density of settlement was estimated in relation to arable land, and not the entire area of the districts, taking into account that the majority of villages are located in the agricultural zone. The distribution of classes and subclasses of district settlement networks of rural areas by regions of Uzbekistan was also analysed. It was found that the spatial differentiation of rural settlement networks in a given region of Uzbekistan is largely influenced by the diversity of landforms, types of nature management and agriculture, the impact of large cities as centres of urban agglomerations, and the characteristics of both old and newly irrigated areas.

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