Disaster tragedies hit Palu City at the end of 2018. Three natural phenomena occurred simultaneously; earthquake, Tsunami, and liquefaction. This event took people’s residential areas and activity centers. Currently, To Kaili residence is built by using modern spatial concepts. In the past, spatial concepts related to settlements have grown within Kaili people with the use of place-naming (toponymy) that is closely related to terminologies in disaster. To Kaili have built knowledge constructs related to safe and unsafe places to be inhabited. However, immigrants came to reside in some unsafe areas, making those areas as new settlements. Considering the place-naming (toponymy) in Kaili’s language, such as Jono Oge; which means mud, and Rogo; which means destroyed, thus, these areas are unsafe to be made as settlements if we are referring back to the living space concepts in To Kaili’s perspective. Through this local knowledge, development concepts and regional layouts of Palu, Sigi, and Donggala can refer to people’s local knowledge associated with spatial concepts.

Keywords: To Kaili, Liquefaction, Spatial Concepts, Local Knowledge