Topic: Habitation Size Class Type Names

[arakish]

What names do you give for certain habitation size classes?

• Although it could be applied to any, this is basically for habitations on ground, not underneath nor above.
• I do not need population ranges since I already have a method for deriving these numbers.
• I know "parish" is usually used for a "district" but I am using to apply to a size class name.

Here is the list for the size class names I have come up with so far, in order from smallest to largest.

Thorp
Hamlet
Village
Parish
Town
City
Metropolis
Megalopolis

Just wondering if there are any others I just cannot think of.

Thanks for the suggestions.

rmfr

[Spectre771]

When I was visiting NC, I crossed the RFD several times a day.  Rural Free Delivery.  I have no idea what the actual difference is since the only way I could tell I was in the RFD was the sign on the side of the road that said "You are now in the RFD of..."  It refers to the outlying areas of a city/town where it was impractical for mail delivery.  You could use this RFD moniker for large swaths of farmland within city limits but so far removed from the populous that a lot of interactions with government and emergency services are almost moot.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rural-Free-Delivery

New York and Toronto have boroughs because the city is so large.  There are five boroughs for each of those cities.  If you have a megalopolis, you can break it down into more manageable boroughs.

I've used "camps" in the sense that they were supposed to be non-permanent housing  for the workers/owners of a mine (or similar operation) and they weren't officially cities but they behaved in the same manner by having all the amenities of a city, including the mining company's private security force to police the area.  But the encampment could all be taken down and moved to a new location when the mine moved whether it be months or years.

Outposts, either trading outposts or border patrol outposts.  The trading outposts were more populated than my border patrol outposts.  Similar to the mining camp-towns I used, the trading posts are more permanent and have steady flow of traffic, and usually without a leader figurehead.  Not a lawless town, but with the 'regulars' having a sort of  understood respect for each other and cautious disdain for outsiders. 

You can make a Commune if you want a sect of religious-zealot-nutjobs.  I have one of those :-)  They worship the Spider Goddess - Shrine of Hrssak (Quellbourne).  It is an extremely large commune, nearly it's own town in its own right and EVERYONE steers clear of it and the surrounding region.

[Warl]

I am not sure if a Parish can really fall in with the others, as it generally defines a District territory, much Like a county in some states.

But I am not sure the actual criteria your looking for

[gog]

Here is the list for the size class names I have come up with so far, in order from smallest to largest.

Thorp
Hamlet
Village
Parish
Town
City
Metropolis
Megalopolis

Just wondering if there are any others I just cannot think of.

The issue here is that many of these are measures of settlements based on social importance rather than size historically. In the UK for instance:

• A hamlet and a village are the smallest measure used (below that is farms and some groupings of housing such as those on Country Estates or near industry).
• Then comes Towns which are based on having a royal charter (usually this includes the right to hold a market and fairs)
• Then there are County Town/Shire Town - the central administrative point of a county or shire
• Then there are Cities - which are places that historically had Cathedrals, but now only need a royal charter.

So the question is much more than one of size, also the size my vary depending on the overall population of a region. What is large in one part of the world would be small in another.

[jdale]

I tend to follow http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm so:

Village: 20-1000
Town: 1000-8000
City: 8000-12000
Big City: 12000-100000

But I also made a village generator for IPP and I wanted more words, so I also use Thorp for 20-80, Hamlet for 80-400, and then Village is 400-1000. Thorps can be seasonal, e.g. a logging camp or hunting or fishing camp which is only inhabited part of the year. A Hamlet could be seasonal too although it's a bigger deal. Also Commune which is a religiously oriented settlement which I pegged at 80-600. I took some guidance from Skirmisher Press's City Builder book for these.

In practice, a settlement will retain a name for a while after it grows or shrinks. So the name might reflect what it was 1-3 generations ago, rather than what it is now. Thus you might have a town on the decline with only 800 people left, or a bustling and growing town spilling over its walls with a population of 10,000. All the numbers should therefore be a bit fuzzy.

Metropolis and megalopolis have a very modern sound to them, I wouldn't use them. Unless gigantic cities are strangely common in your setting, I think it's fine to just call them cities. These will be places that everyone has heard of. If your giant city is called Leontunia, you can just say "there are cities and then there is Leontunia", and people should understand.

[Hurin]

Just a few thoughts on nomenclature:

Commune can mean a religious settlement, but in the Middle Ages, a commune meant a town that had a legal charter protecting it's rights. Historians thus speak of the 'communal movement' as a movement for greater independence for cities. It wasn't a designation of size or of religion; it was a designation of legal rights.

I've never actually seen anyone use the term 'Thorp' before this thread. I don't think it is very commonly used, or will be recognizable by non-specialists.

[Spectre771]

Reading the posts of the distinguished folks above, Fief and Fiefdoms, Barony, and Duchy's came to mind.  I'm not familiar  with their proper definitions, but I've used them in gameplay.  Would it be similar to the charter granted my government or royalty, or could it be considered it's own "town-like status"?

[Hurin]

Reading the posts of the distinguished folks above, Fief and Fiefdoms, Barony, and Duchy's came to mind.  I'm not familiar  with their proper definitions, but I've used them in gameplay.  Would it be similar to the charter granted my government or royalty, or could it be considered it's own "town-like status"?

Fief, barony, and duchy were areas granted by royalty or other nobles in the feudal system, but they did not refer exclusively to urban settlements. So for example, they duchy of Tuscany included not just multiple towns (Florence, Pisa, Siena) but also all the rural countryside around them. Some smaller fiefs included no towns at all-- the fief might just be a rural castle and the farmlands surrounding it.

Other terms denoting an urban settlement that people might find useful are:
--Burg/borough
--Vill
--Settlement
--Small Town (as opposed to town)

So it might be better to go with:
--Hamlet
--Village
--Small Town
--Town
--City
--Metropolis
--Megalopolis

[Peter R]

Reading the posts of the distinguished folks above, Fief and Fiefdoms, Barony, and Duchy's came to mind.  I'm not familiar  with their proper definitions, but I've used them in gameplay.  Would it be similar to the charter granted my government or royalty, or could it be considered it's own "town-like status"?

Fief, barony, and duchy were areas granted by royalty or other nobles in the feudal system, but they did not refer exclusively to urban settlements. So for example, they duchy of Tuscany included not just multiple towns (Florence, Pisa, Siena) but also all the rural countryside around them. Some smaller fiefs included no towns at all-- the fief might just be a rural castle and the farmlands surrounding it.

Other terms denoting an urban settlement that people might find useful are:
--Burg/borough
--Vill
--Settlement
--Small Town (as opposed to town)

So it might be better to go with:
--Hamlet
--Village
--Small Town
--Town
--City
--Metropolis
--Megalopolis

I thought the burgs were a style of defended town? In English -burg, -borough, -brough and -bury all share the same root as in Canterbury and Middlesbrough

[intothatdarkness]

Didn't RoCo I have some discussion of this kind of thing? I also have a nagging recollection of something in the Warhammer FRP stuff dealing with settlement patterns and names.

[Hurin]

I thought the burgs were a style of defended town? In English -burg, -borough, -brough and -bury all share the same root as in Canterbury and Middlesbrough

Yes, it has the connotation of a fortified town; in English it is often spelled 'burh'. The root is the Germanic 'burg', which you see in other Germanic languages too, which also has the connotation of a fortified urban settlement.

[jdale]

I've never actually seen anyone use the term 'Thorp' before this thread. I don't think it is very commonly used, or will be recognizable by non-specialists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorp
It's Middle English, not a modern word. I don't see that as a bad thing in this context, though.

[Hurin]

I've never actually seen anyone use the term 'Thorp' before this thread. I don't think it is very commonly used, or will be recognizable by non-specialists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorp
It's Middle English, not a modern word. I don't see that as a bad thing in this context, though.

Oh, it's a perfectly cromulent word. I just think that you've probably got all the words you need without using obscure ones that people won't recognize. So I was just saying that hamlet is really all you need for the smallest settlement, with hamlet being smaller even than a village. If you set a hamlet's size as 1-80, for example, you don't need anything smaller, and you have terms that are recognizable for all the larger sizes.

[Peter R]

I am familiar with places with Thorp in the name such as Cleethorpes in North Lincolnshire. There is a holiday park called Thorpe Park near the village of Thorpe. In common usage Thorp is more commonly seen as a surname rather than as a place name, Jeremy Thorpe, the member of parliment being the most famous example I think of.

I agree that you don't need anything smaller than a hamlet.