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Identification of Ethnic Settlement Regions: Amish‐Mennonites in Ohio
Author(s) -
Kent Robert B.,
Neugebauer Randall J.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
rural sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.083
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1549-0831
pISSN - 0036-0112
DOI - 10.1111/j.1549-0831.1990.tb00692.x
Subject(s) - settlement (finance) , ethnic group , cadastre , geography , identification (biology) , rural settlement , population , archaeology , field (mathematics) , genealogy , ethnology , cartography , rural area , history , demography , sociology , anthropology , political science , law , ecology , payment , biology , mathematics , world wide web , computer science , pure mathematics
The persistence of ethnic settlement in rural regions of the United States is well documented. Yet, there has been little discussion of techniques which allow the identification of the geographic extent and concentration of distinctive ethnic populations. Amish‐Mennonite settlement constitutes a unique component of the rural landscape. A wide range of visual clues alert the observer to their presence, but without painstaking field surveys it is difficult to establish their geographic extent. This paper examines four approaches to the identification of Amish‐Mennonite settlement. These are county‐based population data on religious affiliation, the location of Amish church districts and Mennonite churches, topographic maps, and surnames and cadastral maps. Topographic maps proved unsuitable, but each of the other approaches produced reasonable approximations of the areal extent of Amish‐Mennonite settlement. Surnames and cadastral maps present good possibilities for the identification of other ethnic populations in rural regions.