City / Town

[ronanpoirier]

Can someone tell me the difference between those two words?
In Portuguese both are translated as "cidade", so it kinda confuses me when I should use this, when I should use that.
It seems to me that "city" is used to refer to a big city, while "town" is used to refer to small communities which are around that big city.
I guess that is not correct, or, at least, not totally correct.

Thanks in advance _o/

 

[User1001]

Can someone tell me the difference between those two words?
In Portuguese both are translated as "cidade", so it kinda confuses me when I should use this, when I should use that.
It seems to me that "city" is used to refer to a big city, while "town" is used to refer to small communities which are around that big city.
I guess that is not correct, or, at least, not totally correct.

Thanks in advance _o/

Town is typically used to describe a small community of people in an environment that isn't that busy. A city is typically a larger community of people with a very busy community and lots of movement. Philadelphia is a city in Pennsylvania, while Oley is a town.

 

[Ecossaise]

"City" in the UK was originally used for those towns which had a cathedral and a charter which granted them the status of city - it has expanded to mean a conurbation which may contain several towns; a town was a settlement with defined boundaries and some form of local government. The settlements immediately around a city and often merging into it are "suburbs". In the US, "town" can also mean the administrative district of a county.

As you can see, fairly complicated, and you need to consider source and context.

 

[paul austex]

The difference between the two is subjective. Some towns are so small that would never be called cities but there is no way to say how small that is. One person's town is another person's city. Out in the sparsely populated areas of the western US, you would be surprised how small a city can be. And even when you are in a very large city, you are "in town".

New York, New York, a helluva town,
The Bronx is up and the Battery's down.
The people ride in a hole in the groun'.
New York, New York, it's a helluva town!!

Bottom line: use "town" whenever you want!

A "township" is the usual name for an administrative district of a county in the US, I have never heard "town" used for that.

 

[Shauneyzboyz]

And then you have "village," which is smaller than the two aforementioned words, and is never used in place of city or town (depending on perspective).

 

[cuchuflete]

As has been said by others, it is subjective. If you were to define a continuum, from the smallest collection of dwellings with no commercial or industrial presence, to the largest urban area, it would be—

hamlet=>village=>town=>city.

I used to live in a 'small town' not very far from New York City. It had about 80,000 people, and a small commercial zone. The nearest city, which was considered "medium" in size, compared with NY, was Bridgeport, with about a million people in the city and surrounding area.

Now I live in a village of some thirty or forty houses. The nearest "town" has 1600 people. The nearest "city" has about 5000 residents. The state capital has almost 25,000 people, and is considered to be a fairly 'big city'.

A town may be near a large city, or far from any city. The choice of the word town or city does seem to have some unwritten relationship to the presence of a large nearby city, and not just to geographic size and population.

 

[Shauneyzboyz]

To put the most subjective of definitions to these words: "city/town/village/hamlet," it's basically determined by a question like "what is the persona of this place?"

For example: to a person from a small town, New York is a big city because of the big buildings, flashy lights, the business, etc. But a person from New York City calling it a town (i.e. "my kinda' town") is correct in that a town is usually referred to as a more relaxing place, stable, and less chaotic. Although New York City is chaotic to me (someone not from NYC), it's stable to someone from Manhattan because it's so very normal to them.