Chuvash villages (“yal”) as a rule were situated near water in ravines. Northern and Central region villages were built like nests next to the one, larger settlement. In the South-East in steppe regions and outside Chuvashia they were situated in line along rivers. Yards were built in groups near the progenitor‘s yard (patronymy).

Many Chuvash villages had a strict street planning. Villages were divided into streets (“kas”); they were often fortified with an armed fence, surrounded with a rampart and a ditch, especially in steppe and forest-steppe regions, people of which often had to do with Nogay and Tatar nomads. According to the tradition Upper Chuvash villages (that is in the Northern part of Chuvashia) had few yards (30-70 farmsteads) in comparison with Middle Lower and especially Lower Chuvash villages (up to 1000 yards) in the South and beyond the bounds of the region.

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