Minangkabau - Settlements



The basic territorial units are the traditional nagari (village states), about 500 of which now constitute the homeland area. Natural and man-made features of the landscape mark the boundaries between them. Each nagari is a self-sufficient community with agricultural lands, gardens, houses, prayer houses, a mosque, and a community meeting hall. Ordinarily there is a central open market and scattered coffee shops, but no business district as such. Some old long wooden houses are propped high on foundations and have roofs that bow down deeply at mid-length and rise steeply to the gabled ends. There are also other styles of house. Houses line both sides of the roads, which link all houses. Fruit trees of many sorts shade the houses, rice fields lie behind the houses, and fields for dry cultivation are beyond the rice fields.


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