Disperse settlement: That in which households are scattered in the countryside, at various distances from each other, not forming integral and compact groups. In this work, all settlements reported in the colonial period as rural farms (estates, cattle ranches, tobacco and coffee plantations, farms, work sites) were classified as disperse settlements. In general, small groups of people lived in them. For the present, the classification appearing in the census in force has been followed. According to it, households standing 200 meters apart are to be considered disperse. Whenever there are less than five households together, no matter the distance between them, they form a disperse settlement. In the peasant sector, where disperse settlements are most commonly found, they can also be defined as relatively independent socioeconomic complexes, with land, houses with their facilities and the particular characteristic that everything existing in it is intended for exploitation by that economic unit. At the beginning there may have been only one household to which that of a relative may have been added in the course of time.
