City

[Harwood]

What is the definition of a city/village etc.

[mushroom25]

In Britain, a city is a large town, usually (but not always) the seat of a bishop, with its title conferred by the crown.

After that, definition of "town", "village" is probably one of size and interpretation.

[denisegordon]

A small place can be a city if it has a cathedral (might be a Scottish thing). For example the city of Dunblane in Scotland has a population of only 10,000.

[Buenchico]

Within the UK, for a place to be a city, there are two conditions:
1. It must have been granted a Royal Charter granting city status.
2. It must continue to comply with the conditions imoposed by the Charter (particularly in regard to the appointment of trustees).

Royal charters were originally awarded only to towns with an Anglican cathedral. However, not all towns with cathedrals were awarded city status. (e.g. Bury St Edmunds has a cathedral but remains a town). More recently towns, both with and without cathedrals, have been invited to apply for city status. The awards are only made in 'celebratory years'. e.g. Brighton & Hove became a city in 2000 (as part of the Millenium celebrations) and Preston became a city in 2002 (to recognise the Queen's Golden Jubilee).

As indicated above, it's possible for a place to lose it's city status if it fails to comply with the provisions of its charter. This happened to Rochester in 1998 (although nobody noticed until 2002!).

The legal definition of a city leads to some strange anomalies. In particular, London is not a city. This massive conurbation contains two cities (the City of London and the City of Westminster) but has never been granted city status in it's own right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Status_in_the_UK

The difference between a town and a village is simply that a town has to have its own council (which, unlike parish councils, has the right to cretate bye-laws). Manningtree, in Essex, claims to be England's smallest town but I'm not sure whether this refers to the area or the population. (I've visited many towns which appear to be much smaller).

Chris

[Merthyr Imp]

Isn't it the case that if a village doesn't have a church it's classed as a hamlet? Not sure if that's a hard and fast rule.

[dzug]

There isn't really a hard and fast rule for any of it - OK yes for formal city status, but the word is also loosely used for any large town. And where does Welwyn Garden City fit in?

Sure there's a rough gradation in size from hamlet to village to town to city - but lots of inconsistencies in it. There's villages that have grown into towns, but the locals still think of them as villages and go into denial if you suggest otherwise - and towns that have declined in importance but cling to the notion they are a town, not a villlage. And many a village has become a suburb and won't admit it.

[jno]

traditionally, villages had churches and hamlets didn't; towns had markets, cities had cathedrals. I shouldn't think any of those definitions ever had legal standing, or have it now.