Villages in Germany

A Rundling () is a form of circular village, now found only in Northern Germany, typical of settlements in the Germanic-Slav contact zone in the Early Medieval period. thumb|View of the Rundling Satemin, 3 km west of Lüchow in the Wendland The Rundling was a relatively common village form created by German law, but housing Slav farmers. It usually comprises a central, circular village green owned in common with individually owned farmsteads radiating out around it like the spokes of a wheel. The best examples are now only in a small area of Lower Saxony in Germany near to the town of Lüchow. N

thumb|A Waldhufendorf thumb|right|Stebnik-Steinfels (1783) was founded as a Waldhufendorf. 1852 plan The Waldhufendorf (, "forest village"; plural: -dörfer) is a form of rural settlement established in areas of forest clearing with the farms arranged in a series along a road or stream, like beads on a chain. It is typical of the forests of central Germany and is a type of Reihendorf, in which each farmstead usually has two wide strips of land adjacent to the farmhouse.

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 situated along a linear object such as a riverbank, road, valley, or stream.

thumb|The Haufendorf of Heudorf bei Meßkirch around 1575 A Haufendorf () is an enclosed village with irregular plots of land and farms of greatly differing scale, usually surrounded by a stockade fence (German: Ortsetter). They are typically found in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Haufendörfer (pl.) differ from most other types of village in that they are irregularly laid out. A large number of Haufendörfer emerged in connection with the medieval open field system (Gewanneflur), where each farmer farmed strips of different fields and the location of these strips continually changed. The dis