Why Knowing the Different between town and cities is important?.

How do you know that you live in a city or towns? It is all depending on where you live, the definition of these two terms may vary, as will the official designation that is given to a certain community. 

In general, though, we can assume that a city is larger than a town. Whether that town is an official government entity will vary based on the country and state it is located in.

            Know The Difference Between a City and a Town.

In the United States, an incorporated city is a legally defined government entity.

It has powers delegated by the state and county and the local laws, regulations, and policies are created and approved by the voters of the city and their representatives. A city can provide local government services to its citizens.

In most places in the U.S., a town, village, community, or neighborhood is simply an unincorporated community with no governmental powers.

• County governments typically provide services to these unincorporated communities.
• Some states do have official designations of "towns" that include limited powers.

Generally, in the urban hierarchy, villages are smaller than towns and towns are smaller than cities but each country has its own definition of a city and an urban area.

                  How Urban Areas are Defined Throughout the World

It is difficult to compare countries based on the percentage of urban population. Many countries have different definitions of the population size necessary to make a community "urban."

For example, in Sweden and Denmark, a village of 200 residents is considered to be an "urban" population, but it takes 30,000 residents to make a city in Japan. Most other countries fall somewhere in between.

• Australia and Canada have a minimum of 1,000 citizens.
• Israel and France have a minimum of 2,000 citizens.

• The United States and Mexico have a minimum of 2,500 citizens.

Due to these differences, we have a problem with comparisons. Let us assume that in Japan and in Denmark there are 100 villages of 250 people each. In Denmark, all of these 25,000 people are counted as "urban" residents but in Japan, the residents of these 100 villages are all "rural" populations. Similarly, a single city with a population of 25,000 would be an urban area in Denmark but not in Japan.

Japan is 78 percent and Denmark is 85 percent urbanized. Unless we are aware of what size of a population makes an area urban we cannot simply compare the two percentages and say "Denmark is more urbanized than Japan."

The following table includes the minimum population that is considered "urban" in a sampling of countries throughout the world. It also lists the percent of the country's residents which are "urbanized."

Notice that some countries with a higher minimum population have a lower percentage of urbanized population.

Also, note that the urban population in almost every country is rising, some more significantly than others. This is a modern trend that has been noted over the last few decades and is most often attributed to people moving to cities to pursue work.

Country	Min. Pop.	1997 Urban Pop.	2015 Urban Pop.
Sweden	200	83%	86%
Denmark	200	85%	88%
South Africa	500	57%	65%
Australia	1,000	85%	89%
Canada	1,000	77%	82%
Israel	2,000	90%	92%
France	2,000	74%	80%
United States	2,500	75%	82%
Mexico	2,500	71%	79%
Belgium	5,000	97%	98%
Iran	5,000	58%	73%
Nigeria	5,000	16%	48%
Spain	10,000	64%	80%
Turkey	10,000	63%	73%
Japan	30,000	78%	93%

Sources

• Reality Station NY: An Urban Geography. 2017