Is it a village or town?

My village in the SW has a population of 1,400 with one shop, one pub and a Church. My previous village in Scotland with 13 shops, 2 Churches and 3 pubs has a population of 1,680 but many refer to it as a town ?. Town v village

Dunkeld has a cathedral but it is a village.

Sorry, Plockton actually has 378 residents in the village. A third more than I thought! It’s on the edge of Loch Carron. His house is in this photo. It really is picturesque.

Urmston is a town in Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, which had a population of 41,825 at the 2011 Census. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, it is about five miles (8 km) southwest of Manchester city centre.

My Scottish stepfather was born in Plockton, Wester Ross. He sold his home just before Christmas. It had been in his family for over a hundred years. The population there is a very busy 278!

As did Derby for nearly 500 years!

And Blackburn has a cathedral but doesn’t have City status!

A town becomes a city only when it has a cathedral

Their are 18 cities in the UK that have no cathedral:

Brighton, Bath, Cambridge, Hull, Lancaster, Leeds, Newry, Nottingham, Plymouth, Preston, Salford, Southampton, Stirling, Stoke, Sunderland, Swansea, Westminster and Wolverhampton.

Crumbs, fanny, is it that long ago? I thought it related to the millenium but must have been the Silver Jubilee.

kittylester

Derby has had a cathedral for around 500 years and only became a City about 20 years ago so that theory doesn't hold up Kaimoana.

Kitty I'm sure that you'll find this as strange as I do...
I could have sworn that Derby became a city around 1992/93 when I first came here as a student, which is a little later than you thought, but still in the ball park (or baseball ground ).
However, accordingly to various sources, Derby became a city in 1977

14,000 live in our riverside town in South Bucks. The centre of the town only has 4 roads of shops, restaurants and cafes. There is little room for further development I’m pleased to say.

Derby has had a cathedral for around 500 years and only became a City about 20 years ago so that theory doesn't hold up Kaimoana.

We live in a “small” mediaeval town of about 6k inhabitants, it’s designation as a town is a hangover from its importance as a port in the XVth century. We have markets, guildhall and all that. I think the average age is about 120! ???

But not all cites have a cathedral

No doubt someone has already stated this but I'll add my two penn'orth anyway.

A hamlet is a small community with
out a church. Once a church is built, it becomes a village. Once it has a (cattle) market, even if there are only 300 people living there, it's a town. A town becomes a city only when it has a cathedral.

It has nothing to do with size if you wish to be strictly accurate but common misusage and multiple inaccurate online dictionary entries have made most people think city simply means a high population.

The village I live in has 500 residents. My parents live very rurally and I was surprised to see there are 1200 residents - they’re not in a village, I don’t know what you’d call it! It’s lots of fields with a few houses scattered about. However there is a housing estate which is entered through another village, which most people would assume was part of that village but is actually part of the area where my parents live.

We live in a city, our little corner is quite cut off so feels like a small community ?

I live in a village with a population in the low-hundreds . My nearest town has a population of about 8,000 but lots of people call it ‘the village’, as in ‘I’m just going into the village for my messages.’

St David's is the capital city of Wales; the smallest city in the UK, and has a population of around 2000. It takes about 5 minutes to walk around, has only 3 or 4 shops and a HUGE castle!

There’s a place on Anglesey called City Dulas which I have never understood as it’s a village.

Mamacaz snap, except we also have a small school.

And I live in a town without a market We did have a town hall which has now been debunked into a concrete box of a council building

Just looked up the population of the village I live in was surprised it is 1600, thought it was less.

We always used to say a Hamlet was smaller than a village, a town had an established market and town hall. City had a cathedral. But many villages have "markets" these days and very few towns have the old fashioned market selling cattle etc.
So no idea how they would manage to define them now other than population, but so many villages suddenly double in size with new housing crammed into every nook and cranny.
I am from the Glastonbury/Street area originally and even though they are similar sizes Street is still classed as a village and Glastonbury a town.

Funny that this topic as come up because our local Facebook page has this as a raging argument at the moment! It was a small northern mill working village, with a population of about 3000, up until the 1970s and was run by a parish council. But since then, building has massively increased, the population as grown to 10,000+ and we are now within the remit of a huge council who allow more and more housing developments to be built and have built a town hall, library and leisure centre. But the "old timers" who have lived here for many generations, still refer to it as a village. and become very cross when they're told it's now a town!

Things are a bit different in Scotland, possibly because our population is smaller. I live in a town with a population of between 4,000 and 5,000, and nobody would dream of calling it a village. We used to have a Town Council too.