The Spanish word ranchería, or rancherío, refers to a small, rural settlement. In the Americas the term was applied to native villages or bunkhouses. Anglo-Americans 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 Wayuu are an Indigenous ethnic group of the Guajira Peninsula in northernmost Colombia and northwest Venezuela. The Wayuu language is part of the Arawakan language family.