Town
A town is a residential community of people ranging from a few hundred to several thousands, although it may be applied loosely even to huge metropolitan areas. Generally, a "town" is thought of as larger than a village but smaller than a "city." The words "city" and "village" came into English from Latin via French. "Town" and "borough" (also "burrow," "burgh," "bury," etc.) are native English and Scottish words.
Origin and use around the world
In Old English and Old Scots, "Town" (or "toun," "ton," etc.) originally meant a fortified municipality, whereas a borough was not fortified. But that distinction did not last long, and "Edina Burgh" or "Edinburgh" - modernly called a "city" - was a fortified "town" from its founding.
In American English, a town is usually a municipal corporation that is smaller than a city but larger than a village. In some cases, "town" is an alternate name for "city" or "village" (especially a larger village). Sometimes, the word "town" is short for "township."
In general, towns can be differentiated from townships, villages, or hamlets on the basis of their economic character, in that most of a town's population will tend to derive their living from manufacturing industry, commerce, and public service rather than primary industry such as agriculture or related activities.
A place's population size is not a reliable determinant of urban character. In many areas of the world, as in India at least until recent times, a large village might contain several times as many people as a small town.
The modern phenomena of extensive suburban growth, satellite urban development, and migration of city-dwellers to villages have further complicated the definition of towns, creating communities urban in their economic and cultural characteristics but lacking other characteristics of urban localities.
Some forms of non-rural settlement, such as temporary mining locations, may be clearly non-rural, but have at best a questionable claim to be called a town.
The distinction between a town and a city similarly depends on the approach adopted: a city may strictly be an administrative entity which has been granted that designation by law, but in informal usage, the term is also used to denote an urban locality of a particular size or importance: whereas a medieval city may have possessed as few as 10,000 inhabitants, today some consider an urban place of fewer than 100,000 as a town, even though there are many officially designated cities that are very, very much smaller than that.
Australia
In Australia, the status of a town is formally applied in only a few states. Most states do define cities, and towns are commonly understood to be those centres of population not formally declared to be cities and usually with a population in excess of about 250 people.
The creation and delimitation of Local Government Areas is the responsibility of the state and territory Governments. In all states and the Northern Territory each incorporated area has an official status. The various LGA status types currently in use are:
- New South Wales: Cities (C) and Areas (A)
- Victoria: Cities (C), Rural Cities (RC), Boroughs (B) and Shires (S)
- Queensland: Cities (C), Shires (S), Towns (T) and Island Councils (IC)
- South Australia: Cities (C), Rural Cities (RC), Municipalities/Municipal Councils (M), District Councils (DC), Regional Councils (RegC) and Aboriginal Councils (AC)
- Western Australia: Cities (C), Towns (T) and Shires (S)
- Tasmania: Cities (C) and Municipalities (M)
- Northern Territory: Cities (C), Towns (T), Community Government Councils (CGC) and Shires (S).
Reference
England and Wales
In England and Wales, a town traditionally was a settlement which had a charter to hold a market or fair and therefore became a "market town". Market towns were distinguished from villages in that they were the economic hub of a surrounding area, and were usually larger and had more facilities.
In modern usage the term town is used either for old market towns, or for settlements which have a Town Council. Any parish council can decide to describe itself as a Town Council. Not all settlements which are commonly described as towns have a "Town Council" however.
Alternatively there are also "new towns" which were created during the 20th century, such as Basildon, Redditch and Telford. Milton Keynes was designed to be a "new city" but legally it is still a town despite its size.
Curiously some settlements which describe themselves as towns, are smaller than some large villages (e.g. Kidlington, Oxfordshire) larger than some small towns (e.g. Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire).
The status of a city is reserved for places that have Letters Patent entitling them to the name, historically associated with the possession of a cathedral. Some large municipalities (such as Northampton) are legally boroughs but not cities, whereas some cities are quite small — such as Ely or St David's for instance.
It appears that a city may become a town, though perhaps only through administrative error: Rochester (Kent) has been a city for centuries but, when in 1998 when the Medway district was created, a bureaucratic blunder meant that Rochester lost its official City status and it is now technically a town.
It is often thought that towns with bishops' seats rank automatically as cities: however, Chelmsford remains a town despite being the seat of the Diocese of Chelmsford. St. Asaph, which is the seat of the Diocese of St. Asaph, is another such town. In reality, the pre-qualification of having a cathedral of the established Church of England, and the formerly established Church in Wales or Church of Ireland, ceased to apply from 1888.
The word town can also be used as a general term for urban areas, including cities. In this usage, a city is a type of town — a large one, with a certain status. For example, Greater London is a city, but is sometimes referred to affectionately as "London town". (The "City of London" is the historical nucleus, informally known as the "Square Mile", and is a London borough in its own right). Also, going from the suburbs to central London is to "go into town".
France
From an administrative standpoint, the smallest level of local authorities are all called “communes”. However, some laws do treat these authorities differently based on the population and specific rules apply to the three main cities Paris, Lyon and Marseille. For historical reasons, six communes in the Meuse département still exist as independent entities despite having no inhabitant at all.
For statistical purposes, the national statistical institute (INSEE) operates a distinction between urban areas with fewer than 2,000 inhabitants and bigger communes, the latter being called “villes”. Smaller settlements are usually called “villages”. In any case, the French language does not commonly make a difference between towns and cities.
Germany
Germans do not differentiate between city and town. The German word for both is "Stadt" as it is in many other languages that do not make any difference between the Anglo-Saxon concepts. A town with more than 100,000 inhabitants is called a Großstadt, which is the most adequate equivalence for city. In Germany also the historical importance, the centrality and the population density of an urban place might be taken as characteristics of a "city".
Poland
Similarly to Germany, in Poland there is no difference between city and town. Polish word for city is miasto and the only difference between very big village (in Polish wieś or wies) and small city is the administrative status of the latter one. Many Polish villages are older than some relatively young cities. For example wies Mstow is older around 100 years than closely located city Czestochowa.
Russia
The modern Russian Language (even in the past) doesn't fill the difference between city and town . Both types of urban areas in Russian are called like gorod (Rus: Город). Only some very small towns in Russia and some other CIS and Slaic countries are called as the "Settlement of the Uran type" (Rus: "Посёлок городского типа" ПГТ (PGT)). The main difference between the Urban and Rural areas in Russia is not the population quantity but the dominate kind of employment (in Agriculture or in service and Industry).
Anyhow if the regular population of the area is 5000 - 10000 persons and more with the dominate non-agricultural employment such a place could be noted as a "gorod". Both Moscow with more than 10 000 000 population and Pavlovsk, Voronezh Region (for example) with 15 000 people only are gorods in Russian.
Sweden
Sweden cancelled the official legal term Town (in Swedish: Stad) in the year 1971. Only the word Municipality (in Swedish: Kommun. In US English approximately County) was used, making no legal difference between Stockholm and a countryside municipality. Before that there were a number of terms like Stad/Town, Köping/Large village etc. The definition of Town(Stad) was that it was given such a title. Since the 1980-ies some municipalities (13 out of 290) call themselves town (stad) meaning the same thing as municipality. This has no legal or administrative significance whatsoever. In other cases the seat of the municipality is called "town". There is no difference between city and town, both translates to stad in Swedish.
United States
In the United States of America, the meaning of the term town varies from state to state. In some states, a town is an incorporated municipality, that is, one with a charter received from the state, similar to a city. In others, a town is unincorporated.
The types of municipalities in U.S. states include cities, towns, boroughs, villages, and townships (in the sense of Pennsylvania townships and New Jersey townships; for the meaning in other states, see civil township), although most states do not have all five types. Many states do not use the term "town" for incorporated municipalities. In some states, for example Wisconsin, "town" is used in the same way that civil township is used in elsewhere. In other states, such as Michigan, the term "town" has no official meaning and is simply used informally to refer to a populated place, whether incorporated or not.
In the six New England states, a town is a municipality and a more important unit than the county. In Connecticut, Rhode Island and 7 out of 14 counties in Massachusetts, in fact, counties only exist as map divisions and have no legal functions; in the other four states, counties are primarily judicial districts, with other functions primarily in New Hampshire and Vermont. In all six, towns perform functions that in most states would be county functions. The defining feature of a New England town, as opposed to a city, is that a town meeting and a board of selectmen serve as the main form of government for a town, while cities are run by a mayor and a city council. For example, Brookline, Massachusetts is a town, even though it is fairly urban, because of its form of government.
In New York, a town is similarly a division of the county, but with less importance than in New England. Of some importance is the fact that, in New York, a town provides a closer level of governance than its enclosing county, providing almost all municipal services to unincorporated areas, called hamlets and selected services to incorporated areas, called villages. In New York, a town typically contains a number of such hamlets and villages. However, due to the independent nature of Incorporated Villages, they may exist in two towns or even two counties. Everyone in New York State who does not live in an Indian reservation or a city lives in a town and possibly in one of the town's hamlets or villages. (Some other states have similar entities called townships.) In New York, "town" is essentially short for "township."
In Pennsylvania, there is only one municipality which is incorporated as a "town": Bloomsburg. Most of the rest of the state is incorporated as townships (there are also boroughs and cities), which function in much the same way as the towns of New York or New England, although they may have different forms of government.
In Virginia, a town is an incorporated municipality similar to a city (though with a smaller required minimum population), but while cities are by Virginia law independent of counties, towns are contained within a county.
In Nevada, a town has a form of government, but is not considered to be incorporated. It generally provides a limited range of services, such as land use planning and recreation, while leaving most services to the county. Many communities have found this "semi-incorporated" status attractive; the state has only 20 incorporated cities, and towns as large as Paradise (186,020 in 2000 Census), home of the Las Vegas Strip. Most county seats are also towns, not cities.
In California, where the term "village" is not used, "town" usually refers to a community that is unincorporated, regardless of size. Because of this, some towns are larger than small cities and any settlement with a name may be called a town, even though it may only be a relatively small grouping of buildings. Unincorporated communities, even large ones, are usually not referred to as cities. In casual speech, "town" may be used as a substitute for "city", especially a "general law city", as distinct from a "charter city".
See also
- List of towns
- Company town
- Town Hall
- Township
- Town square
- Town privileges
- Town charter
- Townland
- Town limits
- Site
External links
- Open-Site Regional — Contains information about towns in numerous countries.