Village with an economy based on catching fish and harvesting seafood
An unconventional floating fishing village in Halong Bay, Vietnam
Afishing village is a village, usually located near a fishing ground, with an economy based on catching fish and harvesting seafood. The continents and islands around the world have coastlines totalling around 356,000 kilometres (221,000 mi).[1] From Neolithic times, these coastlines, as well as the shorelines of inland lakes and the banks of rivers, have been punctuated with fishing villages. Most surviving fishing villages are traditional.
Coastal fishing villages are often somewhat isolated, and sited around a small natural harbour which provides a safe haven for a village fleet of fishing boats. The village needs to provide a safe way of landing fish and securing boats when they are not in use.[2] Fishing villages may operate from a beach, particularly around lakes. For example, around parts of Lake Malawi, each fishing village has its own beach. If a fisherman from outside the village lands fish on the beach, he gives some of the fish to the village headman.[3] Village fishing boats are usually characteristic of the stretch of coast along which they operate. Traditional fishing boats evolve over time to meet the local conditions, such as the materials available locally for boat building, the type of sea conditions the boats will encounter, and the demands of the local fisheries.[4]
Apart from catching fish, fishing villages often support enterprises typically found in other types of village, such as village crafts, transport, schools and health clinics, housing and community water supplies. In addition, there are enterprises that are natural to fishing villages, such as fish processing and marketing, and the building and maintenance of boats. Until the 19th century, some villagers supplemented their incomes with wrecking[8] (taking valuables from nearby shipwrecks) and smuggling.[9][10]
Polperro, on the south coast of Cornwall, has been an active fishing and smuggling port since the 12th century CE
In less developed countries, some traditional fishing villages persist in ways that have changed little from earlier times.[11] In more developed countries, traditional fishing villages are changing due to socioeconomic factors like industrial fishing and urbanization.[12] Over time, some fishing villages outgrow their original function as artisanal fishing villages. Seven hundred years ago, Shanghai, beside the Yangtze River delta, was a small fishing village.[13] Extended fishing communities that retain their cultural identities around a connection to water through fishing, leisure, or otherwise, are sometimes referred to as aquapelagos.[14][15] In recent times, fishing villages have been increasingly targeted for tourist and leisure enterprises. Recreational fishing and leisure boat pursuits can be big business these days, and traditional fishing villages are often well positioned to take advantage of this. For example, Destin on the coast of Florida, has evolved from an artisanal fishing village into a seaside resort dedicated to tourism with a large fishing fleet of recreational charter boats.[16] The tourist appeal of fishing villages has become so big that the Korean government is purpose-building 48 fishing villages for their tourist drawing power.[17] In 2004 China reported it had 8,048 fishing villages.[18]
For hundreds of years a community of traditional fishing villages in the archipelagoofLofoten, Norway, was involved in the great cod fisheries. These villages were centred around what is now the village of Reine (pictured).
Skara Brae on the western coast of the Orkney mainland, off Scotland, was a small Neolithic agricultural and fishing village with ten stone houses. It was occupied from about 3100 to 2500 BC, and is Europe's most complete Neolithic village. The ancient Lycian sunken village of Kaleköy in Turkey, dates from 400 BCE.[19]Clovelly, a fishing hamlet north Devon coast of England, an early Saxon settlement, is listed in the Domesday Book.[20]
Recent archaeological excavations of earlier fishing settlements are occurring at some pace. A fishing village recently excavated in Khanh Hoa, Vietnam, is thought be about 3,500 years old.[21] Excavations on the biblical fishing village Bethsaida, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and birthplace of the apostles Peter, Philip and Andrew, have shown that Bethsaida was established in the tenth century BCE.[22]ATongan fishing village, recently excavated, appears to have been founded 2900 years ago. This makes it the oldest known settlement in Polynesia.[23] Another recent excavation has been made at Walraversijde, a medieval fishing village on the coast of West FlandersinBelgium.[24]
Hovden in Norway, has been fishing cod which migrate along the coast for over 1200 years.
Portofino, founded in Roman times, is a picturesque fishing village on the north west Italian coast.
Dunmore East in south east Ireland has been a busy fishing port for hundreds of years.
Pittenweem is a small and secluded fishing village on the east coast of Scotland, founded on historic herring fisheries.
Reconstructed smokehouse at the medieval fishing village of Walraversijde, ca. 1465
^Bathurst, Bella (2005)The Wreckers: a Story of Killing Seas, False Lights, and Plundered Shipwrecks. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin ISBN978-0-618-41677-6
^Smith, Joshua M. (2006) Borderland Smuggling: Patriots, Loyalists and Illicit Trade in the Northeast, 1783–1820 Gainesville: University Press of Florida ISBN0-8130-2986-4.
^Waugh, Mary, (1985) Smuggling in Kent and Sussex 1700–1840 Countryside Books (updated 2003) ISBN0-905392-48-5
Belcher, W.R. (1999) The Ethnoarchaeology of a Baluch Fishing Village. Archaeology of Seafaring: The Indian Ocean in the Ancient Period, Himanshu Prabha Ray ed., pp. 22–50.
Seilert H and S Sangchan (2001) Small-Scale Fishery in Southeast Asia: A Case Study in Southern Thailand: Social and geographic background Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Publication 2001/19, FAO, Rome.
Seilert H and S Sangchan (2001) Small-Scale Fishery in Southeast Asia: A Case Study in Southern Thailand: Fishing activities and their social implications Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Publication 2001/19, FAO, Rome.
Thomson, David B (1979) South China Sea Fisheries Development and Coordinating Programme Intermediate technology and alternative energy systems for small scale fisheries:Integrated systemsFAO working paper, Rome.
