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Other important traits of cities besides population include the capital status and relative continued occupation of the city. For example, country capitals such as [[Beijing]], [[London]], [[Mexico City]], [[Moscow]], [[Nairobi]], [[New Delhi]], [[Paris]], [[Rome]], [[Athens]], [[Seoul]], [[Singapore]], [[Tokyo]], and [[Washington, D.C.]] reflect the identity and apex of their respective nations.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Ch2|url=https://www-personal.umich.edu/~sdcamp/capitals/Ch2.html|access-date=2021-05-10|website=www-personal.umich.edu}}</ref> Some historic capitals, such as [[Kyoto]] and [[Xi'an]], maintain their reflection of cultural identity even without modern capital status. Religious holy sites offer another example of capital status within a religion, [[Jerusalem]], [[Mecca]], [[Varanasi]], [[Ayodhya]], [[Haridwar]] and [[Allahabad]] each hold significance. | Other important traits of cities besides population include the capital status and relative continued occupation of the city. For example, country capitals such as [[Beijing]], [[London]], [[Mexico City]], [[Moscow]], [[Nairobi]], [[New Delhi]], [[Paris]], [[Rome]], [[Athens]], [[Seoul]], [[Singapore]], [[Tokyo]], and [[Washington, D.C.]] reflect the identity and apex of their respective nations.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Ch2|url=https://www-personal.umich.edu/~sdcamp/capitals/Ch2.html|access-date=2021-05-10|website=www-personal.umich.edu}}</ref> Some historic capitals, such as [[Kyoto]] and [[Xi'an]], maintain their reflection of cultural identity even without modern capital status. Religious holy sites offer another example of capital status within a religion, [[Jerusalem]], [[Mecca]], [[Varanasi]], [[Ayodhya]], [[Haridwar]] and [[Allahabad]] each hold significance. | ||
== Meaning == | |||
[[File:Sheth Motisha Tonk 01.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35| [[Palitana]] represents the city's symbolic function in the extreme, devoted as it is to [[Palitana temples|Jain temples]].<ref>Moholy-Nagy (1968), p. 45.</ref>]] | |||
A city can be distinguished from other human settlements by its relatively great size, but also by its functions and its [[city status|special symbolic status]], which may be conferred by a central authority. The term can also refer either to the physical streets and buildings of the city or to the collection of people who dwell there, and can be used in a general sense to mean [[Urban area|urban]] rather than [[rural territory]].<ref name="OED" /><ref name="Lynch2008p678">Kevin A. Lynch, "What Is the Form of a City, and How is It Made?"; in Marzluff et al. (2008), p. 678. "The city may be looked on as a story, a pattern of relations between human groups, a production and distribution space, a field of physical force, a set of linked decisions, or an arena of conflict. Values are embedded in these metaphors: historic continuity, stable equilibrium, productive efficiency, capable decision and management, maximum interaction, or the progress of political struggle. Certain actors become the decisive elements of transformation in each view: political leaders, families and ethnic groups, major investors, the technicians of transport, the decision elite, the revolutionary classes."</ref> | |||
National [[census]]es use a variety of definitions - invoking factors such as [[population]], [[population density]], number of [[dwelling]]s, economic function, and [[infrastructure]] - to classify populations as urban. Typical working definitions for small-city populations start at around 100,000 people.<ref>{{Cite web|url= http://data.oecd.org/popregion/urban-population-by-city-size.htm|title= Population by region - Urban population by city size - OECD Data|website= theOECD|language= en|access-date= 2019-06-03}}</ref> Common population definitions for an urban area (city or town) range between 1,500 and 50,000 people, with most [[U.S.]] states using a minimum between 1,500 and 5,000 inhabitants.<ref>"[https://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/dyb/dyb2015/notes/notes06.pdf Table 6]" in [[United Nations Demographic Yearbook]] ([https://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/dyb/dyb2015.htm 2015]), the 1988 version of which is quoted in Carter (1995), pp. 10–12.</ref><ref name="HugoEtAl2003" /> Some jurisdictions set no such minima.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.nclm.org/resource-center/Pages/How-Municipalities-Work.aspx|title= How NC Municipalities Work – North Carolina League of Municipalities|website= www.nclm.org|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100516211303/http://www.nclm.org/resource-center/Pages/How-Municipalities-Work.aspx|archive-date= 2010-05-16|url-status= dead}}</ref> In the [[United Kingdom]], [[city status in the United Kingdom|city status is awarded by the Crown]] and then remains permanently. (Historically, the qualifying factor was the presence of a [[cathedral]], resulting in some very small cities such as [[Wells, Somerset|Wells]], with a population 12,000 {{as of | 2018 | lc = on}} and [[St Davids]], with a population of 1,841 {{as of | 2011 | lc = on}}.) According to the "functional definition", a city is not distinguished by size alone, but also by the role it plays within a larger political context. Cities serve as administrative, commercial, religious, and cultural hubs for their larger surrounding areas.<ref name="Smith2002" /><ref name="Marshall14">Marshall (1989), pp. 14–15.</ref> An example of a settlement with "city" in their names which may not meet any of the traditional criteria to be named such include [[Broad Top City, Pennsylvania]] (population 452). | |||
The presence of a [[Intelligentsia|literate elite]] is sometimes included{{by whom|date=October 2019}} in the definition.<ref>Kaplan et al. (2004), pp. 23–24.</ref> A typical city has professional [[Public administration|administrators]], regulations, and some form of [[taxation]] (food and other necessities or means to trade for them) to support the [[Civil service|government workers]]. (This arrangement contrasts with the more typically [[egalitarianism|horizontal]] relationships in a [[tribe]] or [[village]] accomplishing common goals through informal agreements between neighbors, or through [[leadership]] of a chief.) The governments may be based on heredity, religion, military power, work systems such as canal-building, food-distribution, land-ownership, agriculture, commerce, manufacturing, finance, or a combination of these. Societies that live in cities are often called [[civilization]]s. | |||
The ''degree of urbanization'' is a modern metric to help define what comprises a city: "a population of at least 50,000 inhabitants in contiguous dense grid cells (>1,500 inhabitants per square kilometer)".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://blogs.worldbank.org/sustainablecities/how-do-we-define-cities-towns-and-rural-areas|title=How do we define cities, towns, and rural areas?|date=March 10, 2020|author=Lewis Dijkstra, Ellen Hamilton, Somik Lall, and Sameh Wahba}}</ref> This metric was "devised over years by the [[European Commission]], [[OECD]], [[World Bank]] and others, and endorsed in March [2021] by the [[United Nations]]... largely for the purpose of international statistical comparison".<ref>{{cite news|title=What makes a city a city? It's a little complicated|first=Oliver|last=Moore|date=Oct 2, 2021|newspaper=[[The Globe and Mail]]|page=A11}}</ref> | |||