A fishing village is a village, usually located near a fishing ground, with an

economy An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

based on catching

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

and harvesting

seafood Seafood is any form of Marine life, sea life regarded as food by humans, prominently including Fish as food, fish and shellfish. Shellfish include various species of Mollusca, molluscs (e.g., bivalve molluscs such as clams, oysters, and mussel ...

. The continents and islands around the world have coastlines totalling around 356,000 kilometres (221,000 mi). From

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

times, these coastlines, as well as the shorelines of inland lakes and the banks of rivers, have been punctuated with fishing villages. Most surviving fishing villages are traditional.

Characteristics

Coastal fishing villages are often somewhat isolated, and sited around a small natural

harbour A harbor (American English), or harbour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be Mooring, moored. The t ...

which provides a safe haven for a village fleet of

fishing boats A fishing vessel is a boat or ship used to fishing, catch fish and other valuable nektonic aquatic animals (e.g. shrimps/prawns, krills, coleoids, etc.) in the sea, lake or river. Humans have used different kinds of surface vessels in commercial ...

. The village needs to provide a safe way of landing fish and securing boats when they are not in use. Fishing villages may operate from a beach, particularly around lakes. For example, around parts of

Lake Malawi Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, () is an African Great Lakes, African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It is ...

, each fishing village has its own beach. If a fisherman from outside the village lands fish on the beach, he gives some of the fish to the village headman. Village fishing boats are usually characteristic of the stretch of coast along which they operate. Traditional fishing boats evolve over time to meet the local conditions, such as the materials available locally for boat building, the type of sea conditions the boats will encounter, and the demands of the local

fisheries Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life or, more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a., fishing grounds). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farm ...

. Some villages move out onto the water itself, such as the floating fishing villages of

Ha Long Bay Ha may refer to: Agencies and organizations * Health authority, a former type of administrative organisation of the NHS in England and Wales * Hells Angels Motorcycle Club * Highways Agency (renamed ''Highways England'', now ''National Highways'' ...

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

, the stilt houses of

Tai O Tai O () is a fishing town, partly located on an island of the same name, on the western side of Lantau Island in Hong Kong. The village name means ''large inlet'', referring to wiktionary:outlet, outlet for the waterways (Tai O Creek and Tai ...

built over tidal flats near Hong Kong, and the kelong found in waters off

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

, the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

and

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. Other fishing villages are built on

floating island A floating island is a mass of floating aquatic plants, mud, and peat ranging in thickness from several centimeters to a few meters. Sometimes referred to as ''tussocks'', ''floatons'', or ''suds'', floating islands are found in many parts of t ...

s, such as the Phumdi on Loktak Lake in India, and the Uros on

Lake Titicaca Lake Titicaca (; ; ) is a large freshwater lake in the Andes mountains on the border of Bolivia and Peru. It is often called the highest navigable lake in the world. Titicaca is the largest lake in South America, both in terms of the volume of ...

which borders Peru and Bolivia. Apart from catching fish, fishing villages often support enterprises typically found in other types of village, such as village crafts, transport, schools and health clinics, housing and community water supplies. In addition, there are enterprises that are natural to fishing villages, such as

fish processing The term fish processing refers to the processes associated with fish and fish products between the time fish are caught or harvested, and the time the final product is delivered to the customer. Although the term refers specifically to fish, in ...

and

marketing Marketing is the act of acquiring, satisfying and retaining customers. It is one of the primary components of Business administration, business management and commerce. Marketing is usually conducted by the seller, typically a retailer or ma ...

, and the building and maintenance of boats. Until the 19th century, some villagers supplemented their incomes with wrecking (taking valuables from nearby

shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. It results from the event of ''shipwrecking'', which may be intentional or unintentional. There were approximately thre ...

s) and

smuggling Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

. File:Po Toi O.jpg, Po Toi O is a small active fishing village at Clear Water Bay Peninsula near

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

File:Jurmos-bebyggelse-2005.jpg, A fishing village at Jurmo Island in Korpo, Finland File:Port Isaac 2.jpg, Port Isaac, a historic fishing village on the north coast of

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

File:Polperro 5.jpg, Polperro, on the south coast of

, has been an active fishing and

port since the 12th century CE In less developed countries, some traditional fishing villages persist in ways that have changed little from earlier times. In more developed countries, traditional fishing villages are changing due to

socioeconomic Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

factors like industrial fishing and

urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation in British English) is the population shift from Rural area, rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. ...

. Over time, some fishing villages outgrow their original function as

artisanal fishing Artisanal, subsistence, or traditional fishing consists of various small-scale, low-technology, fishing practices undertaken by individual fishermen (as opposed to commercial fishing). Many of these households are of coastal or island ethnic grou ...

villages. Seven hundred years ago,

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

, beside the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

delta, was a small fishing village. Extended fishing communities that retain their cultural identities around a connection to water through fishing, leisure, or otherwise, are sometimes referred to as aquapelagos. In recent times, fishing villages have been increasingly targeted for tourist and leisure enterprises.

Recreational fishing Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing or game fishing, is fishing for leisure, exercise or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is occupational fishing activities done for profit; or subsistence fishing, ...

and leisure boat pursuits can be big business these days, and traditional fishing villages are often well positioned to take advantage of this. For example, Destin on the coast of Florida, has evolved from an artisanal fishing village into a

seaside resort A seaside resort is a city, resort town, town, village, or hotel that serves as a Resort, vacation resort and is located on a coast. Sometimes the concept includes an aspect of an official accreditation based on the satisfaction of certain requi ...

dedicated to tourism with a large fishing fleet of recreational charter boats. The tourist appeal of fishing villages has become so big that the Korean government is purpose-building 48 fishing villages for their tourist drawing power. In 2004 China reported it had 8,048 fishing villages.Zhijie G, Yingliang X, Xiangguo Z, Yong W, Daobo A and Sugiyama S (2008)
Review of fishery information and data collection systems in China
' FAO Fisheries Circular No. 1029, p. 46. Rome. .

Early villages

Skara Brae Skara Brae is a stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill in the parish of Sandwick, Orkney, Sandwick, on the west coast of Mainland, Orkney, Mainland, the largest island in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland. It consiste ...

on the western coast of the

Orkney Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland, ...

mainland, off Scotland, was a small

agricultural and fishing village with ten stone houses. It was occupied from about 3100 to 2500 BC, and is Europe's most complete Neolithic village. The ancient

Lycia Lycia (; Lycian: 𐊗𐊕𐊐𐊎𐊆𐊖 ''Trm̃mis''; , ; ) was a historical region in Anatolia from 15–14th centuries BC (as Lukka) to 546 BC. It bordered the Mediterranean Sea in what is today the provinces of Antalya and Muğ ...

n sunken village of Kaleköy in Turkey, dates from 400 BCE.

Clovelly Clovelly () is a privately owned harbour village in the Torridge District, Torridge district of Devon, England. The settlement and surrounding land belongs to John Rous, who inherited it from his mother in 1983. He belongs to the Hamlyn family ...

, a fishing

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

north Devon coast of England, an early

Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

settlement, is listed in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

. Recent archaeological excavations of earlier fishing settlements are occurring at some pace. A fishing village recently excavated in Khanh Hoa, Vietnam, is thought be about 3,500 years old. Excavations on the biblical fishing village

Bethsaida Bethsaida ( ; from ; from Aramaic and , , from the Hebrew root ; ), also known as Julias or Julia (), is a place mentioned in the New Testament. Julias lay in an administrative district known as Gaulonitis, in modern-day Golan Heights. Histor ...

, on the shore of the

Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic languages, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Genezareth Lake or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth ...

and birthplace of the apostles Peter, Philip and Andrew, have shown that Bethsaida was established in the tenth century BCE. A

Tonga Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...

n fishing village, recently excavated, appears to have been founded 2900 years ago. This makes it the oldest known settlement in

Polynesia Polynesia ( , ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in ...

. Another recent excavation has been made at

Walraversijde Walraversijde is an abandoned medieval fishing village on the Belgian coast, near Ostend. It was rediscovered in 1992 in a dune area, near a medieval dyke. Archeological research showed that it had been occupied, in two phases, between 1200 and ...

, a medieval fishing village on the coast of

West Flanders West Flanders is the westernmost province of the Flemish Region, in Belgium. It is the only coastal Belgian province, facing the North Sea to the northwest. It has land borders with the Dutch province of Zeeland to the northeast, the Flemis ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

.Tys D and Pieters M (2009
"Understanding a medieval fishing settlement along the southern Northern Sea: Walraversijde, c. 1200–1630"
In: Sicking L and Abreu-Ferreira D (Eds.) ''Beyond the catch: fisheries of the North Atlantic, the North Sea and the Baltic, 900-1850'', Brill, pages 91–122. . File:IMG 1060a - Mot Malnesberget ved Hovden.jpg, Hovden in Norway, has been fishing

cod Cod (: cod) is the common name for the demersal fish genus ''Gadus'', belonging to the family (biology), family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gad ...

which migrate along the coast for over 1200 years. File:Portofino-Senpai.jpg,

Portofino Portofino (; ) is a ''comune'' located in the Metropolitan City of Genoa on the Italian Riviera. The town is clustered around its small harbour, and is known for the colourfully painted buildings that line the shore. Since the late 19th centur ...

, founded in Roman times, is a picturesque fishing village on the north west Italian coast. File:Irl DunmoreEast harbour.jpg, Dunmore East in south east Ireland has been a busy fishing port for hundreds of years. File:Pittenweem.jpg, Pittenweem is a small and secluded fishing village on the east coast of Scotland, founded on historic

herring Herring are various species of forage fish, belonging to the Order (biology), order Clupeiformes. Herring often move in large Shoaling and schooling, schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate wate ...

fisheries. File:Walraversijde55.jpg, Reconstructed smokehouse at the medieval fishing village of

, ca. 1465

Notes

References

* Beare RJ and K E Rushoke (2001
''Integrated Development of Fishing Villages in Kagera Region, Tanzania''

FAO The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; . (FAO) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition ...

, Rome. * Belcher, W.R. (1999) ''The Ethnoarchaeology of a Baluch Fishing Village.'' Archaeology of Seafaring: The Indian Ocean in the Ancient Period, Himanshu Prabha Ray ed., pp. 22–50. * Drewes, Edeltraud (2004
''Three Fishing Villages In Tamil Nadu – A Socio-Economic Study With Special Reference To The Role and Status of Women''

Working Paper BOBP/WP/14. Rome * McGoodwin JR (2001
''Understanding the cultures of fishing communities. A key to fisheries management and food security''
FAO Fisheries, Technical Paper 401. . * Poonnachit-Korsieporn A (2000

: Regional Office for Asia, Publication 2000/06. Rome. * Seilert H and S Sangchan (2001) Small-Scale Fishery in Southeast Asia: A Case Study in Southern Thailand
''Social and geographic background''
Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Publication 2001/19,

, Rome. * Seilert H and S Sangchan (2001) Small-Scale Fishery in Southeast Asia: A Case Study in Southern Thailand
''Fishing activities and their social implications''
Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Publication 2001/19,

, Rome. * Sciortino JA (1995
''Construction and Maintenance of Artisanal Fishing Harbours and Village Landings''
Volume 25 of FAO Training Series, FAO, Rome. . * Thomson, David B (1979) ''South China Sea Fisheries Development and Coordinating Programme Intermediate technology and alternative energy systems for small scale fisheries:'

working paper, Rome.

External links

City vs.village fishing
, Microdocs

ReasonOnline

Teochow Fishing Village – China

Fishing Village Mumbai, India
– video {{DEFAULTSORT:Fishing Village Types of village

Characteristics

Early villages

See also

Notes

References

External links