What Makes a Village a Town, and a Town a City
A village is a small settlement. In Britain the line between village, town and city is historical rather than a matter of population.
A village is a settlement smaller than a town. Britain draws the lines oddly. There is no population threshold: town status is largely historical, and *city* status is granted by the Crown. St Davids in Wales is a city with about 1,600 people, while many towns of 100,000 are not.
- A small settlement. *A fishing village.*
- Its people. *The whole village turned out.*
- A group of buildings for a purpose. *An Olympic village.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | village | A quiet village. |
| Plural | villages | Neighbouring villages. |
| Person | villager | Local villagers. |
| Related | hamlet | A tiny hamlet. |
| Related | parish | The parish council. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The village has one shop and two pubs.A familiar British ratio.
- It takes a village to raise a child.A proverb of contested origin.
- A hamlet has no church.The traditional English distinction.
Settlement sizes in Britain
- Hamlet — a small group of houses, traditionally without a church
- Village — has a church and usually a shop or pub
- Town — a larger settlement, often with a market charter
- City — granted by royal charter, not by size
- Conurbation — several towns grown together
From Old French *village*, from Latin *villaticus*, belonging to a country house, from *villa*, a country estate — the same root as *villain*.
What makes somewhere a city in Britain?
A grant from the Crown. It is not about population, and having a cathedral is a common but not decisive factor.
Village or hamlet?
Traditionally a village has a church and a hamlet does not, though the usage is loose in practice.