A town is a type of a human settlement . Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities , though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world.
62-567: South Woodham Ferrers is a town and civil parish in the City of Chelmsford in Essex , England. It is approximately 35 miles (56 km) east of London and 8 miles (13 km) south-east of Chelmsford , and had a population of 16,453 at the 2011 Census , a decrease from 16,629 at the 2001 Census . The town is situated east of Fenn Creek, near to where it meets the River Crouch . South Woodham Ferrers
124-408: A Millionenstadt , a city with anywhere between one and five million inhabitants (such as Cologne , Munich , Hamburg and Berlin ). Also, a city with more than five million inhabitants is often referred to as a Megastadt (commonly translated as megacity ). Historically, many settlements became a Stadt by being awarded a Stadtrecht in medieval times. In modern German language use,
186-537: A further 17 towns , which have merged with a municipal parish ( vallasisene linn ). In Finland, there is no distinction between a town and a city as the word kaupunki is used for both bigger and smaller settlements, which are bigger than villages and boroughs; although when talking about the word town , the word pikkukaupunki is used ( pikku means 'little' or 'small'). There are over one hundred municipal towns in Finland. From an administrative standpoint,
248-456: A combination of professional services (such as banks and estate agents) and dining locations such as cafés and restaurants. The supermarket chain Asda opened a store in the town in 1978 which made them the principal retailer in the town. In 2001 Essex County Council sold the freehold for the majority of the town centre to Asda, who in turn sold a package of land and property to SW Investments . As
310-531: A community centre. In Summer 2006, South Woodham Ferrers elected its first town mayor. South Woodham Ferrers Rugby Club has a Club House at Saltcoats Park, running teams at ages between under 7 and under 16. The youth section consists of under-17s and colts. There are three senior teams, a veterans' team and a ladies' team. South Woodham Ferrers Cricket Club runs three teams in the T Rippon Mid-Essex League, playing home games at Purleigh CC and Salcoats Park. South Woodham Ferrers has several amateur football teams,
372-463: A fence or a hedge. In English and Dutch, the meaning of the word took on the sense of the space which these fences enclosed, and through which a track must run. In England, a town was a small community that could not afford or was not allowed to build walls or other larger fortifications, and built a palisade or stockade instead. In the Netherlands, this space was a garden, more specifically those of
434-556: A higher degree of services . (There are a few exceptions, when towns of fewer than 50,000 people gained the status: Érd , Hódmezővásárhely , Salgótarján and Szekszárd ) As of middle 2013, there are only 23 such towns in Hungary. The 2011 Census of India defines towns of two types: statutory town and census town . Statutory town is defined as all places with a municipality , corporation , cantonment board or notified town area committee. Census towns are defined as places that satisfy
496-590: A higher tier of local government, larger towns and cities may have the status of a kreisfreie Stadt , combining both the powers of a municipality and a district. Designations in different states are as diverse as e.g. in Australian States and Territories, and differ from state to state. In some German states, the words Markt ('market'), Marktflecken (both used in southern Germany) or Flecken ('spot'; northern Germany e.g. in Lower Saxony ) designate
558-426: A municipality must have at least 3,000 inhabitants to have the right to request the town title. Market towns usually have between 500 and 4,000 inhabitants, with median and average both around 1,000. In Denmark, in many contexts no distinction is made between "city", "town" and "village"; all three translate as by . In more specific use, for small villages and hamlets the word landsby (meaning 'country town')
620-539: A newspaper, Essex Chronicle . South Woodham Ferrers has two choirs. The men's choir was originally named after the town and now performs under the name of men2sing. The women's choir is The Swift Singers. There are three tiers of local government covering South Woodham Ferrers, being South Woodham Ferrers Town Council at parish level, Chelmsford City Council at district level and Essex County Council at county level. The town council meets and has its offices at Champions Manor Hall on Hullbridge Road, which also serves as
682-430: A result of these sales, Asda own the town's car parks, Queen Elizabeth II Square and approximately one-third of the shop premises in the town centre. SW Investments owns most of the remaining areas in the town centre, including Market Square, with the remaining premises having a variety of private owners. In 1981 Queen Elizabeth II opened the town square, which was named after her. The main secondary school in
SECTION 10
#1733093790353744-533: A social and technical infrastructure, as well as a population of no fewer than 3500 people. For resort settlements the requirements are lower with the population needing to be no fewer than 1000 people but infrastructure requirements remain. The legal definition of a town in Canada varies by province or territory , as each has jurisdiction over defining and legislating towns, cities and other types of municipal organization within its own boundaries. The province of Quebec
806-408: A town such as Parun , the capital of Nuristan Province , whose population is less 20,000 people. In Albania and Kosovo qytezë means 'town', which is very similar to the word for city ( qytet ), although there is no official use of the term for any settlement. In Albanian qytezë means 'small city' or 'new city', while in ancient times it referred to a small residential center within
868-563: A town-like residential community between Gemeinde and Stadt with special importance to its outer conurbation area. Historically those had Marktrecht (market right) but not full town privileges; see Market town . The legal denomination of a specific settlement may differ from its common designation (e.g. Samtgemeinde – a legal term in Lower Saxony for a group of villages [ Dorf , pl. Dörfer ] with common local government created by combining municipalities [ Gemeinde , pl. Gemeinden ]). In ordinary speech, Greeks use
930-690: Is Stadt , as it is the case in many other languages that do not differentiate between these concepts. The word for a 'village', as a smaller settlement, is Dorf . However, the International Statistics Conference of 1887 defined different sizes of Stadt , based on their population size, as follows: Landstadt ('country town'; under 5,000), Kleinstadt ('small town'; 5,000 to 20,000), Mittelstadt ('middle town'; between 20,000 and 100,000) and Großstadt ("large town"; 100,000 to 1,000,000). The term Großstadt may be translated as 'city'. In addition, Germans may speak of
992-467: Is a de facto statutory city. All the Czech municipalities with more than 40,000 inhabitants are cities. Town and market town are above all ceremonious honorary degrees, referring to population, history and regional significance of a municipality. As the statistics of Czech municipalities shows, towns usually have between 1,000 and 35,000 inhabitants, with median around 4,000 and average around 6,500. Nowadays
1054-547: Is an alternative name for "city" or "village" (especially a small city or large village; and occasionally even hamlets ). Sometimes, the word town is short for township . In general, today towns can be differentiated from townships, villages, or hamlets on the basis of their economic character, in that most of a town's population will tend to derive their living from manufacturing industry, commerce , and public services rather than primary sector industries such as agriculture or related activities. A place's population size
1116-422: Is commonly referred to as a city or as a town, no distinction and no objective legal criteria exist to make such a distinction under law. Ontario allows municipalities to select whichever administrative term they like with no legal distinction existing between towns, townships, cities, and villages. Instead all municipalities, with the exception of Toronto and Ottawa, fall into one of three legal categories under
1178-520: Is difficult to call the remaining provincial capitals "large towns" as, in general, they are less developed and have shrinking population, some with as few as 30,000 inhabitants. In Bulgaria the Council of Ministers defines what constitutes a settlement, while the President of Bulgaria grants each settlement its title. In 2005 the requirement that villages that wish to classify themselves as town must have
1240-550: Is not a reliable determinant of urban character. In many areas of the world, e.g. in India at least until recent times, a large village might contain several times as many people as a small town. In the United Kingdom, there are historical cities that are far smaller than the larger towns. The modern phenomenon of extensive suburban growth, satellite urban development, and migration of city dwellers to villages has further complicated
1302-487: Is part of the Maldon constituency represented by Sir John Whittingdale MP. The area now occupied by South Woodham Ferrers was sparsely populated farmland until the railway station opened in 1889. The station was originally called "Woodham Ferris", having been built to serve the nearby village of Woodham Ferrers , which stands on a hill 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the station. South Woodham Ferrers developed gradually around
SECTION 20
#17330937903531364-420: Is partitioned into 2098 municipalities ( German : Gemeinden ) of fundamentally equal rank. Larger municipalities are designated as market towns ( German : Marktgemeinden ) or cities ( Städte ), but these distinctions are purely symbolic and do not confer additional legal responsibilities. There is a number of smaller communities that are labelled cities because they used to be regional population centers in
1426-464: Is unique in that it makes no distinction under law between towns and cities. There is no intermediate level in French between village and ville ( municipality is an administrative term usually applied to a legal, not geographical entity), so both are combined under the single legal status of ville . While an informal preference may exist among English speakers as to whether any individual ville
1488-488: Is used, while the Danish equivalent of English city is storby (meaning 'large town'). For formal purposes, urban areas having at least 200 inhabitants are considered by . Historically some towns held various privileges, the most important of which was the right to hold market. They were administered separately from the rural areas in both fiscal, military and legal matters. Such towns are known as købstad (roughly
1550-614: The Crystal Palace TV transmitter. However, BBC East region is also the default BBC One variant given to South Woodham Ferrers postcodes on Channel 101 through satellite television such as Freesat . Local radio stations are BBC Essex on 95.3 FM, Heart Essex on 102.6 FM and Radio Essex on 107.7 FM. The town is served by the local community magazine called the Focus, produced bi weekly by DXP Print Solutions Ltd based in Rayleigh, it also has
1612-555: The German word Zaun , the Dutch word tuin , and the Old Norse tún . The original Proto-Germanic word, * tūnan , is thought to be an early borrowing from Proto-Celtic * dūnom (cf. Old Irish dún , Welsh din ). The original sense of the word in both Germanic and Celtic was that of a fortress or an enclosure. Cognates of town in many modern Germanic languages designate
1674-484: The 1950s, to accommodate exponential population increase. The first new towns included Tsuen Wan and Kwun Tong . In the late 1960s and the 1970s, another stage of new town developments was launched. Nine new towns have been developed so far. Land use is carefully planned and development provides plenty of room for public housing projects. Rail transport is usually available at a later stage. The first towns are Sha Tin , Tsuen Wan , Tuen Mun and Tseung Kwan O . Tuen Mun
1736-533: The 21st century, merged most κοινότητες with the nearest δήμοι , dividing the whole country into 325 self-governing δήμοι . The former municipalities survive as administrative subdivisions ( δημοτικά διαμερίσματα , δημοτικές ενότητες ). Cyprus, including the Turkish-occupied areas, is also divided into 39 δήμοι (in principle, with at least 5,000 inhabitants, though there are exceptions) and 576 κοινότητες . Hong Kong started developing new towns in
1798-777: The Anglo-Saxon settlement period. In Old English and Early and Middle Scots , the words ton , toun , etc. could refer to diverse kinds of settlements from agricultural estates and holdings, partly picking up the Norse sense (as in the Scots word fermtoun ) at one end of the scale, to fortified municipalities. Other common Anglo-Saxon suffixes included ham 'home', stede 'stead', and burh 'bury, borough, burgh'. In toponymic terminology, names of individual towns and cities are called astyonyms or astionyms (from Ancient Greek ἄστυ 'town, city', and ὄνομα 'name'). In some cases, town
1860-647: The Minister of Internal Affairs selects candidates from a committee-screened list of applicants, whom the President of Republic usually affirms by issuing a bill of town's rank to them. Since being a town carries extra fiscal support from the government, many relatively small villages try to win the status of városi rang ('town rank') nowadays. Before the fall of communism in 1990, Hungarian villages with fewer than 10,000 residents were not allowed to become towns. Recently some settlements as small as 2,500 souls have received
1922-504: The Municipalities Act: Single-tier (I.e. towns that are located within a region or county but that are considered separate for municipal purposes such as Hamilton ), lower-tier (i.e. municipalities that are part of a region or county such as St. Catharines ), or upper-tier (i.e. regional municipalities such as Niagara ). Accordingly, many larger municipalities continue to use the title of town due to it better reflecting
South Woodham Ferrers - Misplaced Pages Continue
1984-715: The National Statistics Institute (INE) as an urban entity with a population from 2001 to 5000 or an area with a population from 1001 to 2000 and an established economic activity. In Czechia , a municipality can obtain the title of a city ( Czech : statutární město ), town ( Czech : město ) or market town ( Czech : městys ). The title is granted by law. Statutory cities (in English usually called just "cities"), which are defined by law no. 128/2000 Coll., can define their own self-governing municipal districts. There are 26 such cities, in addition to Prague , which
2046-468: The appurtenances of local government (e.g. a police force). In the United States these are referred to as "incorporated towns". In other cases the town lacks its own governance and is said to be "unincorporated". The existence of an unincorporated town may be legally set out by other means, e.g. zoning districts. In the case of some planned communities , the town exists legally in the form of covenants on
2108-469: The beginning of the root word (e.g. nagyváros ) have been normalized to differentiate between cities and towns (towns being smaller, therefore bearing the name kisváros .) In Hungary, a village can gain the status of város ('town'), if it meets a set of diverse conditions for quality of life and development of certain public services and utilities (e.g. having a local secondary school or installing full-area sewage collection pipe network). Every year
2170-399: The character of the municipality. For example, Oakville (2021 Population: 213,759) is the largest municipality to use the title of town to reflect its largely suburban character while other municipalities such as Richmond Hill (2021 Population: 202,022) have opted to change their status from "town" to "city" to encourage investment. In Chile , towns (Spanish: pueblos ) are defined by
2232-464: The consolidation of large estates during the Roman Empire , the town became the center of large farms. A distinction was created between rustic and urban settlements: In Afghanistan , a city and a town are both referred to as shār ( Dari : شهر ; Pashto : ښار ). The capital of each of its 34 provinces may include a major city such as Kabul whose population is over five million people or
2294-414: The definition of towns, creating communities urban in their economic and cultural characteristics but lacking other characteristics of urban localities. Some forms of non-rural settlement, such as temporary mining locations, may be clearly non-rural, but have at best a questionable claim to be called a town. Towns often exist as distinct governmental units, with legally defined borders and some or all of
2356-609: The distant past. The city of Rattenberg for example has about 400 inhabitants. The city of Hardegg has about 1200 inhabitants. There are no unincorporated areas. Of the 201 cities in Austria, 15 are statutory cities ( Statutarstädte ). A statutory city is a city that is vested, in addition to its purview as a municipality, with the duties of a district administrative authority . The status does not come with any additional autonomy: district administrative authorities are essentially just service centers that citizens use to interact with
2418-621: The following criteria: A132 road (England) The A132 road is a road in England connecting Pitsea and South Woodham Ferrers . The A132 starts from a roundabout next to the A13 in Pitsea . From there, the route heads towards Basildon . After going through Basilton, the route heads northwards to an interchange with the A127 . From the interchange, the route heads north-eastwards through Wickford to
2480-421: The historical importance, the existence of central functions (education, retail etc.) and the population density of an urban place might also be taken as characteristics of a Stadt . The modern local government organisation is subject to the laws of each state and refers to a Gemeinde ( municipality ), regardless of its historic title. While most Gemeinden form part of a Landkreis ( district ) on
2542-470: The large dish which earned the hill its nickname has been removed. The permissive footpath around the site passes the entrance sign warning of "helicopters landing, danger of radiation" and other such dangers associated with a working radar testing site. The inner workings of the site are secured with a gatehouse, anti-climb fencing and a number of CCTV cameras. Bushy Hill was also known locally, before Marconi came to use it, as "Landslip Hill", referring to
South Woodham Ferrers - Misplaced Pages Continue
2604-562: The largest being South Woodham Ferrers United FC. This is the biggest sports organisation in the town with 40+ teams ranging from 3 yrs up to and including adults' football. Others are William De Ferrers, Woodham Athletic & Woodham Radars. Team Bentham is a South Woodham Ferrers-based skateboard team, which won the 2019 Essex wide 'Lord of the Swords' competition. It is named after English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer Jeremy Bentham . Town The word "town" shares an origin with
2666-542: The name of their respective seats, and if they were not municipal seats, they would have the category of village. Bulgarians do not, in general, differentiate between 'city' and 'town'. However, in everyday language and media the terms "large towns" and "small towns" are in use. "Large towns" usually refers to Sofia , Plovdiv , Varna and Burgas , which have population over 200,000. Ruse and Stara Zagora are often included as well due to presence of relatively developed infrastructure and population over 100,000 threshold. It
2728-418: The national government, for example to apply for driver licenses or passports. The national government generally uses the provinces to run these points of contact on its behalf; in the case of statutory cities, the municipality gets to step up. In Brazil, since 1938, it was defined that the seat of the municipalities would pass to the category of city and give it the name and the districts would be designated by
2790-476: The properties within the town. The United States Census identifies many census-designated places (CDPs) by the names of unincorporated towns which lie within them; however, those CDPs typically include rural and suburban areas and even surrounding villages and other towns. The distinction between a town and a city similarly depends on the approach: a city may strictly be an administrative entity which has been granted that designation by law, but in informal usage,
2852-417: The rank of town (e.g. Visegrád, Zalakaros or Gönc) and meeting the conditions of development is often disregarded to quickly elevate larger villages into towns. As of middle 2013, there are 346 towns in Hungary, encompassing some 69% of the entire population. Towns of more than 50,000 people are able to gain the status of megyei jogú város (town with the rights of a county ), which allows them to maintain
2914-557: The same meaning as borough albeit deriving from a different etymology) and they retain the exclusive right to the title even after the last vestiges of their privileges vanished through the reform of the local administration carried through in 1970. In Estonia , there is no distinction between a town and a city as the word linn is used for both bigger and smaller settlements, which are bigger than villages and boroughs. There are 30 municipal towns ( omavalitsuslik linn ) in Estonia and
2976-430: The smallest level of local authorities are all called communes . They can have anywhere from a handful to millions of inhabitants, and France has 36,000 of them. The French term for town is bourg but French laws generally do not distinguish between towns and cities which are all commonly called villes . However, some laws do treat these authorities differently based on the population and different rules apply to
3038-556: The south face of the hill which has slid away leaving a bare escarpment, clearly visible from the town. The town is connected by the A132 to the A130 , A127 and other main routes. The B1012 goes east to Southminster and Burnham-on-Crouch and the B1418 north to Danbury . South Woodham Ferrers railway station is on the single-track Crouch Valley Line from Wickford to Southminster . The station
3100-413: The southwestern part of the town are taken from the works of J. R. R. Tolkien , such as Gandalf's Ride, Gimli Watch, Shirebourn Vale, Rivendell Vale, Celeborn Street, Hobbiton Hill and Arwen Grove. South Woodham Ferrers has a weekly magazine called 'The South Woodham Focus', established in 2000. The town centre has around 100 business units. Approximately 45% are retail premises, with the remainder being
3162-429: The station, with some of the farmland being parcelled up into plots for sale to individuals and developers. In 1974 Essex County Council adopted a masterplan to significantly expand South Woodham Ferrers with large housing estates and other facilities, including a new town centre. The area remained part of the civil parish of Woodham Ferrers until 1 April 1987, when it was made a separate parish. Many street names in
SECTION 50
#17330937903533224-421: The term is also used to denote an urban locality of a particular size or importance: whereas a medieval city may have possessed as few as 10,000 inhabitants, today some consider an urban place of fewer than 100,000 as a town, even though there are many officially designated cities that are much smaller than that. 193 countries have been involved in a common effort to agree on a common statistical definition of
3286-607: The three big cities Paris , Lyon and Marseille . For historical reasons, six communes in the Meuse département exist as independent administrative entities despite having no inhabitants at all. For statistical purposes, the national statistical institute ( INSEE ) operates a distinction between urban areas with fewer than 2,000 inhabitants and bigger communes, the latter being called villes . Smaller settlements are usually called villages . Germans do not, in general, differentiate between 'city' and 'town'. The German word for both
3348-455: The three categories: cities, towns and rural areas. Australian geographer Thomas Griffith Taylor proposed a classification of towns based on their age and pattern of land use . He identified five types of towns: Through different periods of recorded history, many towns have grown into sizeable settlements, with the development of properties, centres of culture, and specialized economies. Çatalhöyük , currently an archaeological site,
3410-411: The town is William de Ferrers School , the first intake of which was in 1982. The town has five primary schools: Collingwood, Elmwood, St. Josephs RC , Trinity St. Mary's C of E and Woodville. Chetwood Primary School was closed in 2009 and was replaced by a Sure Start centre. Bushy Hill is part of South Woodham Ferrers town council area, and lies to the north of the town. The west face of Bushy Hill
3472-675: The walls of a castle. In Australia, most rural and regional centres of population can be called towns; many small towns have populations of less than 200. The smallest may be described as townships. In addition, some local government entities are officially styled as towns in Queensland , South Australia , Western Australia and the Northern Territory , and formerly also (till the 1990s) in Victoria . The Austrian legal system does not distinguish between villages, towns, and cities. The country
3534-548: The wealthy, which had a high fence or a wall around them (like the garden of the palace of Het Loo in Apeldoorn , which was the model for the privy garden of William III and Mary II at Hampton Court ). In Old Norse tún means a (grassy) place between farmhouses, and the word is still used with a similar meaning in modern Norwegian. Old English tūn became a common place-name suffix in England and southeastern Scotland during
3596-617: The word χωριό ('village') to refer to smaller settlements and the word πόλη or πολιτεία ('city') to refer to larger ones. Careful speakers may also use the word κωμόπολη to refer to towns with a population of 2,000–9,999. In Greek administrative law there used to be a distinction between δήμοι , i.e. municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants or considered important for some other geographical (county seats), historical or ecclesiastical (bishops' seats) reason, and κοινότητες, referring to smaller self-governing units, mostly villages. A sweeping reform, carried out in two stages early in
3658-498: Was considered to be the oldest inhabited town, or proto-city , that existed from around 7500 BC. Inscribed as a World Heritage Site , it remains a depopulated town with a complex of ruins. In Roman times , a villa was a rural settlement formed by a main residential building and another series of secondary buildings. It constituted the center from which an agricultural holding was administered. Subsequently, it lost its agricultural functions and reduced its activity to residential. With
3720-541: Was covered in broad leafed woodland and known locally as "Little Wood". "Big Wood", officially named Hawe's Wood and also known as "Bluebell Wood", is closer to Edwin's Hall. Later the hill became known locally as "Radar Hill" due to having been visually dominated by a radar testing site. This site was operated by a number of the former Marconi companies including Alenia Marconi Systems , and more recently used by BAE Systems to develop various radar technologies, some of which are for military use. The site remains in use, but
3782-534: Was intended to be self-reliant, but was not successful and turned into a bedroom community like the other new towns. More recent developments are Tin Shui Wai and North Lantau (Tung Chung-Tai Ho) . In Hungary there is no official distinction between a city and a town (the word for both in Hungarian is város ). Nevertheless, the expressions formed by adding the adjectives kis ('small') and nagy ('large') to
SECTION 60
#17330937903533844-452: Was originally called "Woodham Ferris", being renamed "Woodham Ferrers" in 1913 before adopting its current name in 2007. There was a ferry crossing across the River Crouch to Hullbridge and other destinations. The town is about 10 km (6 miles) away from Southend Airport . South Woodham Ferrers is within the BBC London and ITV London region. Television signals are received from
#352647