Town

Main street in Bastrop, Texas, a small town

There is no universal, standard definition of the word town. This is mostly due to the evolution of the English language as an amalgamation of words from many other languages. "City" and "village" came into English from Latin via French. "Town" and "borough" (also "burrow," "burgh," "bury," etc.) are native English and Scottish words.

Etymology of the word 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 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

• Australian Bureau of Statistics: Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) 2005

England and Wales

A traditional English town centre at Rugby

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 facillities.

In modern usage the term town is used either for old maket 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, Milton Keynes and Telford.

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 a Royal Charter entitling them to the name, traditionally associated with the possession of a cathedral. Some large municipalities are legally boroughs but not cities, whereas some cities are quite small — St. David's for instance.

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.

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, London is a city, but is sometimes referred to as "London town" (the "City of London" is the nucleus informally known as the "Square Mile"). Also, going from the suburbs to central London is to "go into town".

• See Also
  • List of towns in England
  • List of towns in Wales

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.

The United States

The tiny farming community of Wyatt, Indiana.

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.

Typically, municipalities are classed as cities, towns or boroughs, or villages in decreasing order of size, although not all states have all three levels. 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 in these states, in practice a more important unit than the county. In Connecticut and Rhode Island, 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 subdivision 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 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 California (where the term "village" is not used), "town" is simply another word 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
• Site

External links

• Open-Site Regional — Contains information about towns in numerous countries.