Talk:town

2003
What is the difference between city and town?

Is a city bigger than a town?


 * Usually yes, but not necessarily. In most English-speaking countries, a city is a town that has been granted a special legal status.  In Britain, a city is a town that has been granted the status of city by Royal charter.  It is commonly believed among British people that this is dependent on having a cathedral, though this in fact isn't the case. Amatlexico 28 Nov 2003 22:05 UTC

Towns in China are Bigger than State Capitals of the USA
Guiyu is variously described as a village, small town and city by the citations on that page. In official terminology, we call it a 'town' as the normative translation of 鎮. But Guiyu is more populous than Topeka, Kansas; Hartford, Connecticut; Lansing, Michigan; Springfield, Illinois; Albany, New York; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Trenton, New Jersey; and 16 other US State capital cities. It seems to me therefore that the use of the word 'town' as a translation from 鎮 does not convey to the English reader the enormity of the population of the locale and that some kind of fix is needed to avoid deceiving the reader. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 03:27, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but the American use of "town" for tiny villages with 400 people doesn't convey the right meaning to speakers in other countries either. When I hear "town" I think perhaps between 5,000 and 100,000 people. So Guiyu is, proportionally, much closer than those American pseudo-towns. In fact, although I would usually tend to call a place with 150,000 inhabitants a "city", it wouldn't strike me as odd if someone called it a "town". 90.186.170.100 23:39, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * PS: is called a "town" on wikipedia and it's bigger than Guiyu (160,000). So this really doesn't seem to be a China problem, but a USA problem. 90.186.170.100 00:04, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

RFV discussion: December 2021
Rfv-sense: A collection of houses enclosed by fences or walls. - obsolete Notusbutthem (talk) 22:44, 6 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I fully understand the nuances of this definition. I think this is cited but I am not entirely sure. Kiwima (talk) 05:37, 15 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I don't see how this is distinct from the general sense (1?); I'm inclined to merge this into sense 1, perhaps expanding "especially one larger than a village and smaller than a city" to "especially one larger than a village and smaller than a city, and historically often enclosed by walls" or something. - -sche (discuss) 00:34, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Perhaps this sense is informed by the etymology. Cognates like are about the fences, not the houses. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:36, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

RFV-resolved I folowed 's suggestion and merged the definition with #1. Kiwima (talk) 19:34, 26 December 2021 (UTC)