Circassians - Settlements

The different settlements were formed slowly through the waves of migration and were mainly agricultural. Today some are still primarily agricultural (as in Turkey). Others have become metropolitan centers (as in Jordan), and still others are abandoned (as in Syria, where, after the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights in 1967, the inhabitants all became refugees). Some moved to urban areas in the early days of the immigration, others came as part of a wider rural-urban migration, particularly since the 1950s.

Circassian village neighborhoods initially reflected the different dialect groups and the time of settlement. As villages grew more heterogeneous, distinct Circassian and Arab neighborhoods tended to form, although the boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred as residential and economic mobility increase. Where urban centers formed, the Circassians eventually became a numerical minority, old neighborhoods broke up, and residence became defined by class rather than ethnicity.