esme, Turkey a coastal Turkish town with houses in regional style and an Ottoman

Castle.
The alpine town of Davos in the Swiss Alps.
Reading, England, is a large town which has unsuccessfully tried to become a cit
y.
The historical town of Skalica in Slovakia.
Hum (Croatia)
A t
own is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The siz
e definition for what constitutes a "town" varies considerably in different part
s of the world.
Contents
Origin and use
The word town shares an origin with the German word Zaun, the Dutch word tuin, a
nd the Old Norse tun. The German word Zaun comes closest to the original meaning
of the word: a fence of any material. An early borrowing from Celtic *dunom (cf
. Old Irish dun, Welsh din "fortress, fortified place, camp," dinas "city").
In English and Dutch, the meaning of the word took on the sense of the space whi
ch these fences enclosed. In England, a town was a small community that could no
t afford or was not allowed to build walls or other larger fortifications, and b
uilt a palisade or stockade instead. In the Netherlands, this space was a garden
, more specifically those of the wealthy, which had a high fence or a wall aroun
d them (like the garden of palace Het Loo in Apeldoorn, which was the example fo
r the privy garden of William and Mary at Hampton Court). In Old Norse tun means
a (grassy) place between farmhouses, and is still used in a similar meaning in
modern Norwegian.
In Old English and Early and Middle Scots, the word ton, toun, etc. could refer
to kinds of settlements as diverse as agricultural estates and holdings, partly
picking up the Norse sense (as in the Scots word fermtoun) at one end of the sca
le, to fortified municipality at the other. If there was any distinction between
toun (fortified municipality) and burgh (unfortified municipality) as claimed b
y some[who?], it did not last in practice as burghs and touns developed. For exa
mple, "Edina Burgh" or "Edinburgh" (called a city today) was built around a fort
and eventually came to have a defensive wall.
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
, today 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 servic
es rather than primary industry such as agriculture or related activities.
A place's population size is not a reliable determinant of urban character. In m
any 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. In the United Kingd
om, there are historical cities that are far smaller than the larger towns.
The modern phenomenon of extensive suburban growth, satellite urban development,
and migration of city-dwellers to villages have further complicated the definit
ion of towns, creating communities urban in their economic and cultural characte
ristics but lacking other characteristics of urban localities.
Some forms of non-rural settlement, such as temporary mining locations, may be c
learly non-rural, but have at best a questionable claim to be called a town.
Towns often exist as distinct governmental units, with legally defined borders a
nd some or all of the appurtenances of local government (e.g., a police force).
In the United States these are referred to as "incorporated towns". In other cas
es the town lacks its own governance and is said to be "unincorporated". Note th
at the existence of an unincorporated town may be legally set forth through othe
r means, as through zoning districts. In the case of some planned communities, t
he town exists legally in the form of covenants on the properties within the tow
n. The United States Census identifies many census-designated places (CDPs) by t
he names of unincorporated towns which lie within them; however, those CDPs typi
cally include rural and suburban areas and even surrounding villages and other t
owns.
The distinction between a town and a city similarly depends on the approach: a c
ity may strictly be an administrative entity which has been granted that designa
tion by law, but in informal usage, the term is also used to denote an urban loc
ality of a particular size or importance: whereas a medieval city may have posse
ssed as few as 10,000 inhabitants, today some[who?] consider an urban place of f
ewer than 100,000 as a town, even though there are many officially designated ci
ties that are much smaller than that.
Age of towns scheme
Australian geographer Thomas Griffith Taylor proposed a classification of towns
based on their age and pattern of land use. He identified five types of town:[1]
Infantile towns, with no clear zoning
Juvenile towns, which have developed an area of shops
Adolescent towns, where factories have started to appear
Early m
Albania
In Albania "qytez" means town, which is very similar with the word for city ("qyt
et"). Although there is no official use of the term for any settlement. In Alban
ian "qytez" means "small city" or "new city", while in ancient times "small resid
ential center within the walls of a castle".
Australia
In Australia, towns or "urban centre localities" are commonly understood to be t
hose centers of population not formally declared to be cities and having a popul
ation in excess of about 200 people.[2] Centers too small to be called towns are
generally understood to be a township.[citation needed]
In addition, some local government entities are officially styled as towns in Qu
eensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, and before the statewide
amalgamations of the 1990s in Victoria some local government entities were styl
ed as towns, but now towns are only localities that contain an urban centre with
a population greater than 200.[citation needed]
Austria
In Austria, designations are similar to those in Germany with a trichotomy in Ge
meinde, Markt(gemeinde) and Stadt. Which translate to "Community", "Market Commu
nity" and "City".
Bulgaria
Main article: List of cities and towns in Bulgaria
Bulgarians do not, in general, differentiate between 'city' and 'town'. However,
in everyday language and media the terms "large towns" and "small towns" are in
use. Usually "large towns" refers to Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas or someti
mes to all 28 oblast cities. In Bulgaria the Council of Ministers defines what c
onstitutes a settlement, while the President of Bulgaria grants each settlement
its title. In 2005 the requirement that villages that wish to classify themselve
s as town must have a social and technical infrastructure, as well as a populati
on of no fewer than 3500 people. For resort settlements the requirements are low
er with the population needing to be no fewer than 1000 people but infrastructur
e requirements remain.
Canada
Main articles: List of towns in Canada and Municipal government in Canada
The legal definition of a town in Canada varies by province or territory, as eac
h has jurisdiction over defining and legislating towns, cities and other types o
f municipal organization within its own boundaries.
The province of Quebec is unique in that it makes no distinction under law betwe
en towns and cities. There is no intermediate level in French between village an
d ville (municipality is an administrative term usually applied to a legal, not
geographical entity), so both are combined under the single legal status of vill
e. While an informal preference may exist among English speakers as to whether a
ny individual ville is commonly referred to as a city or as a town, no distincti
on and no objective legal criteria exist to make such a distinction under law.
Chile
In Chile, towns (Spanish: pueblos) are defined by the National Statistics Instit
ute (INE) as an urban entity with a population from 2001 to 5000 or an area with
a population from 1001 to 2000 and an established economic activity.