Talk:Town

Netherlands

I wanted to start a discussion before changing the section. First of all what's written here is wrong. In the Netherlands there's no difference between 'town' and 'village' which both translate as 'dorp' while there clearly is a difference between 'town' and 'city', the latter being translated as 'stad'.

'Steden' (plural of 'stad'), English: cities, are those places that once have received city rights, while 'dorpen' are those place that have 'dorpsstatus' (they're officially registered as villages). Smaller places are called 'buurtschappen' (neigbourhoods) or 'gehuchten' (hamlets), depending on their status. In English 'town' had a certain (legal) definition based on facilities, while it is nowadays used to describe anything between a village and a city. In Dutch there's a word to describe bigger villages which did not have city rights, 'vlek', literally 'spot'.

In modern times, however, the importance of city rights has disappeared and the definition of 'stad' watered and became only to include big cities (steden), but also big villages(dorpen). The term 'vlek' has become unnecessary and is not used anymore. The application of the words 'stad' and 'dorp' has become completely random and subjective and is dependent whether someone would consider a place big enough to call it a city or call it a village instead. Besides that the definition is not only limited to size, but to a lot of other things as well (e.g. the presence of waterways in the city centre, the presence of medieval urban architecture, the presence of modern urban architecture instead, etc.). Because of a lack of these three things I myself sometimes find it very hard to consider the city I currently live in to be a city, even though it has city rights and a population of 150k. On the contrary I consider a village with no city rights and a population of 5,5k to be city like because of the presence of 2 of those things.

In the province of Friesland the 'city-village distinction' is still very important and the city of Stavoren is considered to be a city, even though it has less than 1k inhabitants. The word 'flekke' is still used to describe big places without city rights. The second biggest place in Frisia, Drachten, is not a city (stêd), but a 'flekke'.

Simply stating that 'city' and 'town' mean the same in Dutch is wrong, but stating that town and city aren't the same is also incorrect as this doesn't take modern developments into account. --SK-luuut (talk) 20:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

This article makes no mention of the Southern Netherlands aka Belgium at all. The early development of towns in the Southern Netherlands is of great interest to students of the Middle Ages. The ability of the towns of the Southern Netherlands to win wrestle rights from their feudal masters eventually led to the redefining of the relationship between the three estates and the emergence of early modern societies in Northern Europe. Furthermore calling these places cities erases any historical awareness of their development from the language (but see below under town - city). Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 22:09, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

It is simply not true that The Hague never got its city rights. However late, it did occur in 1806; city rights were granted by Lodewijk Napoleon. Sources: [1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Den_Haag#Stad_of_dorp.3F; [2] http://historie.hdpnet.nl/gesch16.htm; — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.213.254.83 (talk) 15:05, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Hong Kong section does not fit with rest of article

The HK section is about towns and town planning specifically, and not generally, like the rest of the article (did not check all sections (tl:dr)).

I think it needs to be re-written to fit in with the purpose of the article. Jason Brown (talk) 14:01, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Edinburgh

Edinburgh was already a fort named Din Eidin before it became Edinburgh by the Angles, so that part isn't correct — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.159.215 (talk) 02:23, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

10th Amendment

This article now says:

Since the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution largely leaves local-government organization to the individual U.S. states, the definition (if any) of "town" varies widely from state to state.

I fear this will mislead the reader into thinking that this is a right of states that was granted by the Tenth Amendment, rather than a right states had before the Tenth Amendment, which was merely saying the Constitution of the United States should not be construed as altering that already existing situation. Thus I think this should be rephrased, although I am not yet sure how. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:39, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

The issue isn’t simply that the states have that power, but also that Congress for the most part does not. Many people hold the inaccurate view that whatever a state legislature may do within its state, Congress may do nationwide. We should therefore have language explaining why, notwithstanding that widespread but inaccurate view, it’s mostly a state issue. Doctor Whom (talk) 20:05, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Lead images

Among many other desperately needed improvements, the lead images here should be converted to a collage using {{multiple image}}. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:06, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

... and be made less Euro-centric and US-centric, please? See also discussion at city here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:City#Lead_image EMsmile (talk) 10:34, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

"Porkberry" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Porkberry has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 February 20 § Porkberry until a consensus is reached. Steel1943 (talk) 19:53, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

"Town (Delaware)" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Town (Delaware) has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 February 20 § Town (Delaware) until a consensus is reached. Steel1943 (talk) 20:03, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

"Town (Georgia)" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Town (Georgia) has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 February 1 § Town (Georgia) until a consensus is reached. Duckmather (talk) 22:48, 1 February 2026 (UTC)