Investigating the Contribution of Natural Factors in the Distribution and Establishment of Rural Settlements in Zanjan Town

The emergence of human settlements has always been based on natural factors such as water and soil, and villages as the first form of human collective life in a natural environment are affected by numerous natural, economic and ... characteristics. This present study was carried out with the aim of investigating the status of rural settlements in Zanjan town based on natural criteria. In order to achieve the research objectives, five natural criteria including elevation, slope, slope direction and climatic elements (precipitation and temperature) were selected as effective factors in settling habitats and analyzed using statistical methods in GIS environment and Moran index. The results show that 70 percent of the villages of the town are located in altitudes above 1600 meters, which indicates that most areas of the town are mountainous. Also, due to the location of the villages in suitable slopes, 76.2% of the villages of the town have been located on the slope level of 0-15%. Due to the existence of suitable environmental conditions, especially fertile soil, we could see the suitable agricultural production in this area. As a result, due to the lack of significant correlation between natural factors in rural locations, using the Moran index which is the spatial correlation function for extracting the distribution pattern, the spatial distribution of the rural areas of the study area is of a cluster type. In this regard, Moran coefficient is positive and equal to 0.45, which is significant at one percent confidence level.