Crosswords3 mins ago
When is a village a village and not a town?
6 Answers
How does one differentiate between a village and town? What is the definition of "a village"? Is it to do with a church? Or is it to do with local authority administration? Or population? (or is it solely estateagent-ese?!)
Answers
1 to 6 of 6
Best Answer
No best answer has yet been selected by mez. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.
St David's in Wales has the population and size of a village but is in fact a city. Grove in Oxfordshire has the population and size of a town but is in fact a village. I think any village could apply to become a town in same way any town could apply to become a city. Whether it gets accepted is another matter.
I'm fairly certain that firefly's final point is wrong - a so-called village could not apply to be a town (though he's correct that a town can apply to be a city). The terms hamlet, village, township and town are very flexible, and estateagent-ese certainly comes into it. For example, a number of pleasant, though still very urban, enclaves within London like to be thought of as villages. It used to be said that a village (presumably as distinct from a hamlet) should have a church, public house and school, but many country pubs and schools have closed, though the locations concerned still call themselves villages.
The definitions have varied over time. Originally a hamlet has no church, a village has. A town has a market, or at least a market cross and a city has a cathedral. This has been complicated by cities requiring a royal charter, but essentialy the rule stands. Wells is a city, while the much larger Taunton is a town. But wells has a cathedral.
1 to 6 of 6
