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ESL forum >
Ask for help > town or city ?
town or city ?
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monder78
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town or city ?
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Good morning fellow teachers
Maybe somebody will think my question is a bit silly as everybody
knows in theory that city is much bigger than town. What does it really mean much bigger ? Does a certain numer of inhabitants have to live in a town and another in a city? We can say city dwellers. Does it also apply to town residents? How can I be sure that a city resident won �t be offended if I tell him he lives in a town ? By the way is he likely to feel insulted? Last but not least, is there any rule saying that in this case you should use town in another it �d be better to use city ? I �ll be grateful for you replies and I hope other ESL members also will find my question intriguing. Again thanks in advance for your help. :)
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25 Jul 2013
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cunliffe
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Insofar as I know, it �s nothing to do with size. A city has a cathedral and a town hasn �t. |
26 Jul 2013
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alien boy
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That �s certainly right for the UK (according to my English friends) but I don �t expect the rule holds true for other countries!
Generally the difference will be dtermined by each country �s government & official policies.
As far as typical usage goes, I expect most people wouldn �t be offended if they realise you �re an �out-of-towner �.
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26 Jul 2013
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joy2bill
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In Australia a city is definitely larger than a town but how much bigger is a good question! |
26 Jul 2013
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spinney
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Generally speaking, in the UK at least, a city usually has a cathedral although Chelmsford didn �t become a city until 2012 despite already having a cathedral before. Some places have cathedrals but don �t have the royal charter that defines them as cities. In the States, it depends on the politicians although some cities are classified as such because of royal charters from colonial times. In the rest of the English-speaking world I would say city=big, town=biggish, village=small, hamlet=tiny. But I suspect that in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada etc. there is no exact defining rule and, if there is, the rest of the world should take note. This lack of rules drives OCD sufferers mad and a bit of clarity would be a welcome thing!
Just seen Zora�s post: Nice idea! I�d go with that. Much more logical!  |
26 Jul 2013
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Zora
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In the province where I grew up, we defined a town as �having over a
1000 people and under 10,000 �. In fact, one of the towns, where I spent
part of my childhood, was a village (had 990 people) when I moved there
and when it was finally a 1000, the village/town threw a big party!
Anyways, that is my rule of thumb. More than a 1000 people, but less than 10, 0000 (more or less) is a town.
PS: Sorry, I reedited my post and erased it by accident that�s why it�s not in posting order.
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26 Jul 2013
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Peter Hardy
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According to the Australian Macquarie Encyclopaedic Dictionary a city is a large or important town. How large wasn �t mentioned. A town is a group of houses and other buildings thought of as a place, and given a name. It is a densely populated area of considerable size (again without a number), having some degree of self-government.
Okay, that doesn �t mean much for non-Ozzies, so to clarify, we have a population of 23 million. There are only a few big cities, from (almost) a million to a couple of million: Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and Canberra. Darwin has only 120.000 inhabitants, but its the capital of the NT so it �s a city, too. The rest are towns, really, with councils aka a degree of self-government. Although, they may think of themselves as a city as many places are quite important for their hinterland. Next, we don �t have villages (that �s too English) but townships or simply towns. They are much smaller, and usually governed by Shires (also very English, but you can �t have it all). And then there are lots of communities, with only a handful of people. My home �town � i.e. has almost 150 inhabitants. Well, altogether not much to go by. So, if people are offended, shrug it off. And if there was a rule, Spinney, we �d change it anyway. Hope this all helps, and if not, let �s move on :-) Cheers. Peter.
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26 Jul 2013
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Jayho
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This question has come up before over the years (like here) , and it�s an interesting one. As AB said, generally the difference will be determined by each country�s government & official policies. As Douglas once pointed out, a trusty Wikipedia entry says: This entry also lists 53 country �s definitions of cities. Cheers Jayho
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26 Jul 2013
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monder78
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I really appreciate your helpful remarks. |
26 Jul 2013
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