The ''Zeilendorf'' (plural: ''Zeilendörfer'') is one of the historical types of

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

that emerged in Central Europe and consists of a single row of houses (german: Häuserzeile) or farmsteads arranged in a regular and linear fashion. ''Zeilendörfer'' tend to occur as a result of the terrain and often lie on the edge of broad valleys. The individual house plots are arranged along a village street and have strips of farmland adjacent to the dwelling. It is a type of

linear village Linearity is the property of a mathematical relationship (''function'') that can be graphically represented as a straight line. Linearity is closely related to '' proportionality''. Examples in physics include rectilinear motion, the linear r ...

. The farmsteads of these rural settlement types are strictly linear, because they run alongside a

track Track or Tracks may refer to: Routes or imprints * Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity * Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across * Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...

or a small or larger

watercourse A stream is a continuous body of surface water flowing within the bed and banks of a channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to by a variety of local or regional names. Long large streams are ...

. They can be viewed as one half of an ''

Angerdorf __NOTOC__ An ''Angerdorf'' (plural: ''Angerdörfer'') is a type of village that is characterised by the houses and farmsteads being laid out around a central grassed area, the ''anger'' (from the Old High German ''angar'' =pasture or grassy place ...

'' or small '' Straßendorf'' that has been bisected longitudinally. The ''Zeilendorf'' differs from the ''

Reihendorf The ''Reihendorf'' ("row village" or ribbon development, plural: ''Reihendörfer'') or ''Hufendorf'' ("oxgang village") is the name used of a particular form of linear settlement in German-speaking countries that is characterized by rows of houses ...

'' or '' Hufendörfer'' mainly because of its regularity and the close proximity of adjacent dwellings as well as its generally small size. Whether

front garden On a residential area, a front yard (United States, Canada, Australia) or front garden (United Kingdom, Europe) is the portion of land between the street and the front of the house. If it is covered in grass, it may be referred to as a front law ...

s are laid in front of the row of houses in a ''Zeilendorf'', depends on regional tradition. Many narrow ''Zeilendörfer'' could develop into an ''Angerdorf'' through further building (e. g. Jetzles near

Vitis ''Vitis'' (grapevine) is a genus of 79 accepted species of vining plants in the flowering plant family Vitaceae. The genus is made up of species predominantly from the Northern Hemisphere. It is economically important as the source of grapes, b ...

) or into a larger ''Reihendorf'' (e. g. Kirchschlag near Linz). If the single line of settlement at the heart of the settlement was extended on the other side of the river or stream, the strips of land belonging to the farms would face one another on either side of the village street. If the elongated arable fields behind a single- or two-row village had a width of less than about 10 metres (which often used to happen as a result of inheritance division), they are known in the Upper German language area as ''Streifenparzellen'' ("strip plots") or ''Riemenparzellen'' ("belt plots"). Through combining plots and land amelioration more economically viable plots of land could be formed. Relatively elongated ''Zeilendörfer'' often develop along

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

s, whose frequently

flooding A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrolog ...

required the construction of the village street immediately on the edge of the

river terrace Fluvial terraces are elongated terraces that flank the sides of floodplains and fluvial valleys all over the world. They consist of a relatively level strip of land, called a "tread", separated from either an adjacent floodplain, other fluvial te ...

, where agriculture was in any case restricted to one side. Such an example is

Spillern Spillern is a town in the district of Korneuburg in the Austrian state of Lower Austria Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the nort ...

on the

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

(see 2nd external link), where the single row of houses was not expanded into two rows until recent decades when it became a '' Straßendorf''. A saying from earlier times is that in Spillern "the geese are only fried on one side."
Through the construction of the

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

embankment Embankment may refer to: Geology and geography * A levee, an artificial bank raised above the immediately surrounding land to redirect or prevent flooding by a river, lake or sea * Embankment (earthworks), a raised bank to carry a road, railwa ...

in 1841, the side facing the river was made flood-proof and the former back doors (''Hintauswege'') now face the country road built soon after the construction of the railway, whilst on the river side, a branch of the Danube silted up.

External links

Linear forms of settlement in Thuringia
{{Authority control Rural geography Settlement geography Types of village