City

city, relatively permanent and highly organized centre of population, of greater size or importance than a town or village. The name city is given to certain urban communities by virtue of some legal or conventional distinction that can vary between regions or nations. In most cases, however, the concept of city refers to a particular type of community, the urban community, and its culture, known as “urbanism.”

City government is almost everywhere the creation of higher political authority—usually state or national. In most Western countries, devolution of powers to the cities occurs through legislative acts that delegate limited self-government to local corporations. Some European countries adopted general municipal codes that permitted centralized administrative control over subordinate areas through a hierarchy of departmental prefects and local mayors. Socialist countries generally employed a hierarchical system of local councils corresponding to, and under the authority of, governing bodies at higher levels of government.

As a type of community, the city may be regarded as a relatively permanent concentration of population, together with its diverse habitations, social arrangements, and supporting activities, occupying a more or less discrete site and having a cultural importance that differentiates it from other types of human settlement and association. In its elementary functions and rudimentary characteristics, however, a city is not clearly distinguishable from a town or even a large village. Mere size of population, surface area, or density of settlement are not in themselves sufficient criteria of distinction, while many of their social correlates (division of labour, nonagricultural activity, central-place functions, and creativity) characterize in varying degree all urban communities from the small country town to the giant metropolis.