The Spanish word ranchería, or rancherío, refers to a small, rural settlement. In the Americas the term was applied to native villages and to the workers' quarters of a ranch. English adopted the term with both these meanings, usually to designate the residential area of a rancho in the American Southwest, housing aboriginal ranch hands and their families. The term is still used in other parts of Spanish America, for example, the Wayuu tribes in northern Colombia call their villages rancherías.
The Columbia Encyclopedia describes it as:
- "a type of communal settlement formerly characteristic of the Yaqui Indians of Sonora, Mexico, and of various small Native American groups of the SW United States, especially in California. These clusters of dwellings were less permanent than the pueblos (see Pueblo) but more so than the camps of the migratory Native Americans."The term could be applied to the settlements of the California Mission Indians beyond the Spanish missions, such as Maugna of the Tongva people.