Talk:town
2003[edit]
What is the difference between city and town?
Is a city bigger than a town?
— This unsigned comment was added by 213.148.152.250 (talk) at 21:42, 28 November 2003 (UTC).
- Usually yes, but not necessarily. In most English-speaking countries, a city is a town that has been granted a special legal status. In Britain, a city is a town that has been granted the status of city by Royal charter. It is commonly believed among British people that this is dependent on having a cathedral, though this in fact isn't the case. Amatlexico 28 Nov 2003 22:05 UTC
Towns in China are Bigger than State Capitals of the USA[edit]
Guiyu is variously described as a village, small town and city by the citations on that page. In official terminology, we call it a 'town' as the normative translation of 鎮. But Guiyu is more populous than Topeka, Kansas; Hartford, Connecticut; Lansing, Michigan; Springfield, Illinois; Albany, New York; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Trenton, New Jersey; and 16 other US State capital cities.
It seems to me therefore that the use of the word 'town' as a translation from 鎮 does not convey to the English reader the enormity of the population of the locale and that some kind of fix is needed to avoid deceiving the reader. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 03:27, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
- Yeah, but the American use of "town" for tiny villages with 400 people doesn't convey the right meaning to speakers in other countries either. When I hear "town" I think perhaps between 5,000 and 100,000 people. So Guiyu is, proportionally, much closer than those American pseudo-towns. In fact, although I would usually tend to call a place with 150,000 inhabitants a "city", it wouldn't strike me as odd if someone called it a "town". 90.186.170.100 23:39, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
- PS: Slough is called a "town" on wikipedia and it's bigger than Guiyu (160,000). So this really doesn't seem to be a China problem, but a USA problem. 90.186.170.100 00:04, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
Rfv-sense: A collection of houses enclosed by fences or walls. - obsolete Notusbutthem (talk) 22:44, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not sure I fully understand the nuances of this definition. I think this is cited but I am not entirely sure. Kiwima (talk) 05:37, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
- I don't see how this is distinct from the general sense (1?); I'm inclined to merge this into sense 1, perhaps expanding "especially one larger than a village and smaller than a city" to "especially one larger than a village and smaller than a city, and historically often enclosed by walls" or something. - -sche (discuss) 00:34, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
- Perhaps this sense is informed by the etymology. Cognates like German Zaun are about the fences, not the houses. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:36, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
- I don't see how this is distinct from the general sense (1?); I'm inclined to merge this into sense 1, perhaps expanding "especially one larger than a village and smaller than a city" to "especially one larger than a village and smaller than a city, and historically often enclosed by walls" or something. - -sche (discuss) 00:34, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
RFV-resolved I folowed @sche's suggestion and merged the definition with #1. Kiwima (talk) 19:34, 26 December 2021 (UTC)