Asutusruutu

Asutusruutu is a Finnish term that translates to "settlement square" or "settlement block." It refers to a specific type of land parceling system historically used in Finland. The system was designed to allocate land for agriculture and settlement in a way that aimed for equitable distribution and efficient land use.

Under the asutusruutu system, land was divided into small, often irregular, parcels. These parcels were typically allocated to individual households or families. The goal was to provide each family with access to different types of land, such as arable fields, pastures, and forests, to support their subsistence farming. This scattered landholding pattern was common in many traditional agricultural societies.

The asutusruutu system was a significant aspect of Finnish rural development for centuries. It influenced the layout of villages and the landscape of the countryside. While the system has largely been superseded by modern land reforms and ownership structures, its legacy can still be observed in some areas of Finland, particularly in the historical patterns of settlement and land division. The term itself is primarily of historical and geographical interest, used to describe a particular method of land allocation and its resulting spatial organization.