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.
108-643: Port Royal is a town located at the end of the Palisadoes , at the mouth of Kingston Harbour , in southeastern Jamaica . Founded in 1494 by the Spanish , it was once the largest and most prosperous city in the Caribbean , functioning as the centre of shipping and commerce in the Caribbean Sea by the latter half of the 17th century. It was destroyed by an earthquake on 7 June 1692 and its accompanying tsunami , leading to
216-408: 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,
324-413: A careening wharf at Port Royal and rented a building on the foreshore to serve as a storehouse. From 1675, a resident Naval Officer was appointed to oversee these facilities; however, development was cut short by the 1692 earthquake. After the earthquake, an attempt was made to establish a naval base at Port Antonio instead, but the climate there proved disagreeable. From 1735, Port Royal once more became
432-537: 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,
540-405: A strumpet 500 to see her naked. They used to buy a pipe of wine, place it in the street, and oblige everyone that passed to drink from it. The taverns of Port Royal were known for their excessive consumption of alcohol such that records even exist of the wild animals of the area partaking in the debauchery. During a passing visit, famous Dutch explorer Jan van Riebeeck is said to have described
648-667: A base of operations. In 1657, as a solution to his defence concerns, Governor Edward D'Oyley invited the Brethren of the Coast to come to Port Royal and make it their home port. The Brethren was a group of pirates descended from cattle-hunting boucaniers [ fr ] (later anglicized to buccaneers), who had turned to piracy after being robbed by the Spanish (and subsequently thrown out of Hispaniola). These pirates concentrated their attacks on Spanish shipping, whose interests were considered
756-470: A cost of £4,000. Its four arched ribs are supported on massive masonry abutments . After the abutments deteriorated, endangering the structure, it was listed in the 1998 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund . A restoration project began in 2004, with funding provided by American Express through World Monuments Fund . Progress was slow until 2008, when a renewed restoration effort
864-425: A covered way leading from it to the careening wharves. The adjacent Port Admiral 's (later Commodore's) House included a watch tower , to counter the threat of privateers . The Yard continued to expand to meet the new requirements of steam-powered vessels : the victualling wharf became a coaling depot in the 1840s, and twenty years later a small engineering complex was built. The Yard continued to expand through to
972-557: A floating pier where a cruise ship could dock had been built; the first ship arrived on 20 January 2020. Tourists from a few ships (after the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have ended) might be beneficial to the town, but "there's still much work to be done if the town will become the 'world-class heritage, environmental and cultural attraction ' " according to a BBC Travel report published in September 2020. Another report that month discussed
1080-556: 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
1188-590: 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
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#17328368945071296-426: 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')
1404-543: A port but now included archaeological and other attractions. In 1981, the Nautical Archaeology Program at Texas A&M University began a 10-year underwater archaeological investigation of the portion of Port Royal that sank underwater during the 17th century. The program focused on an area that had sunk directly into the sea and suffered very little damage. Due to very low oxygen levels, a large amount of organic material could be recovered. The efforts made by
1512-508: A port city, it was notorious for its gaudy displays of wealth and loose morals, with the privateer crews spending their treasure in the many taverns , gambling houses and brothels which catered for the sailors. When the British and Dutch governments officially abandoned the practice of issuing letters of marque to privateers against the Spanish treasure fleets and possessions in South America in
1620-561: A safe haven for pirates, Port Royal became noted as their place of execution . Gallows Point welcomed many to their death, including Charles Vane and Calico Jack , who were hanged in 1720. About five months later, the famous woman pirate Mary Read died in the Jamaican prison in Port Royal. Two years later, 41 pirates met their death in one month. Under British rule the Royal Navy made use of
1728-540: A sludge resembling quicksand. Eyewitness accounts attested to buildings sliding into the water, but it is likely some simply sank straight down into the now unstable layer. Underwater archaeology, some of which can be seen in the National Geographic Channel show Wicked Pirate City , reveals the foundations of building underwater, showing there was subsidence, as do comparisons of post-earthquake maps and pre-earthquake maps. Some attempts were made to rebuild
1836-533: 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
1944-408: 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
2052-563: 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
2160-511: 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 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
2268-690: 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
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#17328368945072376-507: Is 1,345 millimetres (53 in). The Taino historic indigenous people of the Caribbean occupied this area for centuries before European settlement. They used the area, which they called Caguay or Caguaya , during their fishing expeditions. Although it is not known whether they ever settled at the spot, they did inhabit other parts of Jamaica. The Spanish first landed in Jamaica in 1494 under
2484-467: 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
2592-547: 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
2700-422: 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
2808-520: 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
2916-429: Is frequented by tourists, but is in a state of disrepair. The Jamaican government has recently resolved to further develop the area for its historic and tourist value. This is in part a result of abandonment of plans begun in the early 1960s to develop the town as a cruise ship port and destination. The plans stimulated the archaeological explorations on the site which, in turn, led to the suspension of development solely as
3024-550: 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
3132-420: 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
3240-475: Is the major team. The town had one of the first Spanish cathedrals to be built in the New World, constructed around 1525. Many Christian denominations have churches or meeting halls in the town, including a Roman Catholic church and Wesleyan, Baptist and Seventh-day Adventist chapels. There is also a mosque. Standing untouched in character is a historic alms-house, public hospital, and a penal institution built in
3348-420: 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 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
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3456-464: 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
3564-488: 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
3672-515: The 1907 Kingston earthquake , others by Hurricane Charlie in 1951). A few remain in place, however, including the Naval Hospital complex, some of the steam engineering buildings and a set of officers' houses. There is also a slipway, completed as late as 1904, which (with its accompanying sheds) was designed for housing and launching torpedo boats , stationed there for the Yard's protection. In 2014, it
3780-823: The Admiral of the Royal Navy . The redevelopment plan also includes a five-star hotel . Today, Port Royal is known to post-medieval archaeologists as the "City That Sank". Robert Marx considers it the most important underwater archaeological site in the western hemisphere, yielding 16th–and-17th-century artifacts and many important treasures from indigenous peoples predating its 1518 founding, some from as far away as Guatemala . Several 17th and early 18th century pirate ships sank within Kingston Harbour and are being carefully harvested, under controlled conditions, by various teams of archaeologists. Other "digs" are staked out along various quarters and streets by different teams. By 2019,
3888-496: The University of Edinburgh , wrote the quote: "Both opponents and advocates of so-called 'forced trade' declared the town's fortune had the dubious distinction of being founded entirely on the servicing of the privateers' needs and highly lucrative trade in prize commodities.". "A report that the 300 men who accompanied Henry Morgan to Portobello in 1668 returned to the town with a prize to spend of at least £60 each (two or three times
3996-470: The invasion of Jamaica . By 1659 two hundred houses, shops and warehouses had been built around the fort; by 1692 five forts defended the port. The English initially called the place Cagway but soon renamed it Port Royal. For much of the period between the English conquest and the 1692 earthquake , Port Royal served as the unofficial capital of Jamaica, while Spanish Town remained the official capital. In 1872
4104-408: The 1692 disaster, Port Royal's commercial role was steadily taken over by the rapidly growing nearby town (and later, city) of Kingston. Plans were developed in 1999 to redevelop the small fishing town as a heritage tourism destination to serve cruise ships. The plan was to capitalize on Port Royal's unique and fascinating heritage, with archaeological findings from pre-colonial and privateering years as
4212-484: 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
4320-533: 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
4428-459: The King's Royal Naval Dockyard. Old Port Royal features a cruise ship pier extending from a reconstructed Chocolata Hole harbour and Fisher's Row, a group of cafes and shops on the waterfront. The King's Royal Naval Dockyard features a combination shipbuilding -museum and underwater aquarium with dioramas for views of the native tropical sealife. The Royal Naval Dockyard also includes the headquarters for
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4536-647: 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
4644-504: 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
4752-665: 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
4860-509: 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
4968-423: The Port Royal area. They did, however, retain its Taino name. Spain kept control of Jamaica mostly so that it could prevent other countries from gaining access to the island, which was strategically situated within the trade routes of the Caribbean. Spain maintained control over the island for 146 years, until the English took control following their invasion of 1655. The town was captured by England in 1655 during
5076-512: The St. Catherine, has been growing rapidly. It is sometimes referred to colloquially as "Spain" or "Prison Oval" within Jamaica. The latter nickname is a reference to the cricket pitch or oval located just outside the St. Catherine District Prison, where some inmates can get a limited view of the sport through their cell windows. Association football is also played at the Prison Oval ; Rivoli United F.C.
5184-468: 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
5292-446: The area was nothing but "hot loose sand". According to Mulcahy, "[Modern] scientists and underwater archaeologists now believe that the earthquake was a powerful one and that much of the damage at Port Royal resulted from a process known as liquefaction." Liquefaction occurs when earthquakes strike ground that is loose, sandy, and water-saturated, increasing the water pressure and causing the particles to separate from one another and form
5400-522: The basis of possible attractions. Port Royal has a tropical savanna climate ( Köppen climate classification Aw ) with a short dry season from January to April and a lengthy wet season from May to October. Temperatures remain steady throughout the year with the dry season being slightly cooler and range from 25.5 °C (77.9 °F) in January to 27.7 °C (81.9 °F) in May. The average annual precipitation
5508-859: The beginning of the 20th century, but then (with the Admiralty focusing more and more on the situation in Europe ) the Navy withdrew from its station in Jamaica and the Dockyard closed in 1905. (Nevertheless, the Naval Yard and Hospital remained in Admiralty ownership until after the Second World War , with part of the Yard being used by the War Department ). Many of the Dockyard buildings (most of which were of timber construction) were subsequently demolished or destroyed (some in
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#17328368945075616-469: 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
5724-399: 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
5832-440: The city had one drinking house for every 10 residents. In July 1661 alone, 40 new licenses were granted to taverns . During a 20-year period that ended in 1692, nearly 10,000 people lived in Port Royal. In addition to prostitutes and buccaneers, there were four goldsmiths , 44 tavern keepers, and a variety of artisans and merchants who lived in 2,000 buildings crammed into 51 acres (21 ha) of real estate. 213 ships visited
5940-417: The city's population. Disease ran rampant in the next several months, killing an estimated 2,000 additional people. The historical Jamaica earthquake of 7 June 1692 can be dated closely not only by date, but by time of day as well. This is documented by recovery from the sea floor in the 1960s of a pocket watch stopped at 11:43 a.m., recording the time of the devastating earthquake. The earthquake caused
6048-525: The city, starting with the one third that was not submerged, but these met with mixed success and numerous disasters. An initial attempt at rebuilding was again destroyed in 1703 by fire. Subsequent rebuilding was hampered by several hurricanes in the first half of the 18th century, including flooding from the sea in 1722, a further fire in 1750, and a major hurricane in 1774, and soon Kingston eclipsed Port Royal in importance. In 1815, what repairs were being undertaken were destroyed in another major fire, while
6156-499: The city. By the 1660s the city had, for some, become a pirate utopia and had gained a reputation as the " Sodom of the New World", where most residents were pirates, cutthroats, or prostitutes . When Charles Leslie wrote his history of Jamaica, he included a description of the pirates of Port Royal: Wine and women drained their wealth to such a degree that [...] some of them became reduced to beggary. They have been known to spend 2 or 3,000 pieces of eight in one night; and one gave
6264-464: 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
6372-414: 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
6480-609: 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
6588-626: The eighteenth century. The town contains a factory that manufactures dyes from logwood , a salt factory, and a rice processing plant. In the neighbourhood are five large sugar estates, a milk condensary, and a large textile mill. The Rio Cobre Juvenile Correctional Centre of the Department of Correctional Services, Jamaica is located in Spanish Town. Spanish Town is on the main A1 ( Kingston to Lucea ) and A2 (Spanish Town to Savanna-la-Mar ) roads. It
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#17328368945076696-418: The end of the 18th century a small Victualling Yard had been added to the east (prior to this ships had had to go to Kingston and other settlements to take on supplies). At the start of the 19th century, a significant amount of rebuilding took place in what was by now a substantial Royal Navy Dockyard serving the fleet in the Caribbean . A sizeable storehouse with a clocktower formed the centrepiece, with
6804-432: The establishment of Kingston , the capital and the most populated and prosperous city in Jamaica. Severe hurricanes have regularly damaged the area. Another severe earthquake occurred in 1907 . Port Royal became home port to English and Dutch government sponsored privateers who were encouraged to attack Spanish vessels, at a time when many European nations were reluctant to attack the powerful Spanish fleet directly. As
6912-419: The focus of the Admiralty's attention. New wharves and storehouses were built at this time, as well as housing for the officers of the Yard. Over the next thirty years, more facilities were added: cooperages , workshops, sawpits , and accommodation (including a canteen) for the crews of ships being careened there. A Royal Naval Hospital was also established on land a little to the west of the Naval Yard; and by
7020-538: The following criteria: Spanish Town Spanish Town is the capital and the largest town in the parish of St. Catherine in the historic county of Middlesex , Jamaica . It was the Spanish and British capital of Jamaica from 1534 until 1872. The town is home to numerous memorials, the national archives , and one of the oldest Anglican churches outside England (the others are in Virginia , Maryland , and Bermuda ). The Spanish settlement of Villa de la Vega
7128-416: The forts were destroyed, as well; Fort Charles survived, but Forts James and Carlisle sank into the sea, Fort Rupert became a large region of water, and great damage was done to an area known as Morgan's Line. Although the earthquake hit the entire island of Jamaica, the citizens of Port Royal were at a greater risk of death due to the perilous sand, falling buildings, and the tsunami that followed. Though
7236-427: The government designated Kingston , the largest city, as the capital. Port Royal provided a safe harbour initially for privateers and subsequently for pirates plying the shipping lanes to and from Spain and Panama . Buccaneers found Port Royal appealing for several reasons. Its proximity to trade routes allowed them easy access to prey, but the most important advantage was the port's proximity to several of
7344-404: The growth of Port Royal. Merchants and privateers worked together in what is now referred to as "forced trade." Merchants would sponsor trading endeavors with the Spanish, while also sponsoring privateers to attack Spanish ships and rob Spanish coastal towns. While the merchants most certainly had the upper hand, the privateers were an integral part of the operation. Nuala Zahedieh , a lecturer at
7452-421: 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
7560-471: The island of New Providence . Recent genealogical research indicates that Blackbeard and his family moved to Jamaica where Edward Thatch Jr. is listed as being a mariner in the Royal Navy aboard HMS Windsor in 1706. Port Royal benefited from this lively, glamorous infamy and grew to be one of the two largest towns and the most economically important port in the English colonies . At the height of its popularity,
7668-430: The later 16th century, many of the crews turned pirate to allow themselves to maintain their plundering illegally. Port Royal effectively became a pirate republic, and they continued to use the city as their main base during the 17th century. Pirates from around the world congregated at Port Royal, coming from waters as far away as Madagascar . The town became notorious in folklore as 'the wickedest city on Earth'. After
7776-452: The leadership of Christopher Columbus , leading to the destruction of the Taino population. Permanent settlement occurred when Juan de Esquivel brought a group of settlers in 1509. They came in search of new lands and valuable resources, like gold and silver. Instead they began to cultivate and process the sugar cane. Much like the Taino before them, the Spanish did not appear to have much use for
7884-436: The local authorities tried to remove or sink all of the corpses from the water, they were unsuccessful; some simply got away from them, while others were trapped in places that were inaccessible. Improper housing, a lack of medicine or clean water, and the fact that most of the survivors were homeless led to many people dying of malignant fevers. The earthquake and tsunami killed between 1,000 and 3,000 people combined, nearly half
7992-401: The main road. Its history was shaped by two significant colonial periods: Spanish rule from 1534 to 1655 and the English from 1655 to 1872. After that the capital was relocated to Kingston. The Anglican Church took over the 16th century cathedral. The historic architecture and street names mark the colonial history, such as Red Church and White Church streets, symbolic of the Spanish chapels of
8100-414: The major threat to the town. The English privateers were given letters of marque by Jamaica's governor. Around the same time that pirates were invited to Port Royal, England launched a series of attacks against Spanish shipping vessels and coastal towns. By sending the newly appointed privateers after Spanish ships and settlements, England had successfully set up a system of defence for Port Royal. Spain
8208-542: 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
8316-418: 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
8424-642: The only safe passages or straits giving access to the Spanish Main from the Atlantic. The harbour was large enough to accommodate their ships and the shallow waters provided a place to careen and repair these vessels with no difficulty. It was also ideally situated for launching raids on Spanish settlements. From Port Royal, Christopher Myngs sacked Campeche and Henry Morgan attacked Panama, Portobello , and Maracaibo . Additionally, buccaneers Roche Brasiliano , John Davis and Edward Mansvelt used Port Royal as
8532-407: The original Spanish root of this town. Since the town was badly damaged during the conquest, Port Royal took on many administrative roles and functioned as an unofficial capital during the beginning of English rule. By the time Port Royal was devastated by an earthquake in 1692 , Spanish Town had been rebuilt and was again functioning as the capital. Spanish Town remained the capital until 1872, when
8640-623: 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 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
8748-417: The production of sugar cane. Zahedieh wrote, "The Portobello raid [in 1668] alone produced plunder worth £75,000, more than seven times the annual value of the island’s sugar exports, which at Port Royal prices did not exceed £10,000 at this time." Since the English lacked sufficient troops to prevent either the Spanish or French from seizing it, the Jamaican governors eventually turned to the pirates to defend
8856-513: The program have allowed everyday life in the English colonial port city to be reconstructed in great detail. In 1998, the Port Royal Development Company commissioned architectural firm The Jerde Partnership to create a master plan for the redevelopment of Port Royal, which was completed in 2000. The focus of the plan is a 17th-century-themed attraction that reflects the city's heritage. It has two anchor areas: Old Port Royal and
8964-476: 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,
9072-417: 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
9180-549: The red and white cross, as well as Monk Street, in reference to the monastery that once stood nearby. Nugent and Manchester streets were named for the British Colonial Governors, George Nugent and William Montagu, 5th Duke of Manchester . King Street runs past the King's House, the governor's residence, and Constitution Street, near to the Square, refers to the island's former administrative centre. Regency buildings in
9288-443: The residents adopted the brick-style homes of their native England. Some urged the population to adopt the low, wooden building style of the previous Spanish inhabitants, but many refused. In the end, all of these separate factors contributed to the impending disaster. On 7 June 1692, a devastating earthquake hit the city causing most of its northern section to be lost – and with it many of the town's houses and other buildings. Many of
9396-557: 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
9504-448: The sand under Port Royal to liquefy and flow out into Kingston Harbour. The water table was generally only two feet down before the impact, and the town was built on a layer of some 65 feet (20 m) of water-saturated sand. This type of area did not provide a solid foundation on which to build an entire town. Unlike the Spanish before them, the English had decided to settle and develop the small area of land, even while acknowledging that
9612-403: The scenes: The parrots of Port Royal gather to drink from the large stocks of ale with just as much alacrity as the drunks that frequent the taverns that serve it. There is even speculation in pirate folklore that the infamous Blackbeard ( Edward Teach ) met a howler monkey, while at leisure in a Port Royal alehouse, whom he named Jefferson and formed a strong bond with during the expedition to
9720-487: The seaport in 1688. The city's wealth was so great that coins were preferred for payment over the more common system of bartering goods for services. Following Henry Morgan 's appointment as lieutenant governor, Port Royal began to change. Pirates were no longer needed to defend the city. The selling of slaves took on greater importance. Upstanding citizens disliked the reputation the city had acquired. In 1687, Jamaica passed anti-piracy laws. Consequently, instead of being
9828-409: The seat of the colony was moved to Kingston . Kingston had been founded in the aftermath of the 1692 earthquake. By 1755, serious rivalry from lobbyists caused increasing speculation about the continued suitability of Spanish Town as the capital. In 1836, Governor Lionel Smith observed that "the capital was in ruins, with no commercial, manufacturing and agricultural concern in operation." To worsen
9936-526: The situation, following the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865 , Sir John Peter Grant ordered the removal of the capital in 1872 to Kingston. As a larger port, it had come to be considered the natural capital of the island. After the seat of government was relocated, Spanish Town lost much of its economic and cultural vitality. Built on the west bank of the Rio Cobre , the town lies 13 miles from Kingston on
10044-430: 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
10152-421: 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
10260-607: 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
10368-455: 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,
10476-619: The town centre include the Rodney Memorial flanked by two guns from the French ship Ville de Paris (1764) , and the façade of the Old King's House, which was the residence of the governor until 1872. Spanish Town is the site of an early cast-iron bridge, designed by Thomas Wilson and manufactured by Walker and Company of Rotherham , England. Spanning the Rio Cobre, the bridge was erected in 1801 at
10584-456: The usual annual plantation wage) leaves little doubt that they were right". The forced trade became almost a way of life in Port Royal. Michael Pawson and David Busseret wrote "...one way or the other nearly all the propertied inhabitants of Port Royal seem to have an interest in privateering." Forced trade was rapidly making Port Royal one of the wealthiest communities in the English territories of North America, far surpassing any profit made from
10692-675: 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
10800-552: The well-funded Living Heritage Programme, which was seeking "to transform the town into a SMART, safe and secure community with a vibrant local economy, preserved cultural heritage and protected natural environment". Town The word "town" shares an origin with the German word Zaun , the Dutch word tuin , and the Old Norse tún . The original Proto-Germanic word, * tūnan ,
10908-488: The whole island was severely affected by an epidemic of cholera in 1850. A devastating earthquake on 14 January 1907 liquefied the sand spit, destroying nearly all of the rebuilt city, submerging additional portions, and tilting The Giddy House , an artillery storage room built c. 1880 that is today a minor tourist attraction. Today, the area is a shadow of its former self with a population of fewer than 2,000 that has little to no commercial or political importance. The area
11016-617: 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
11124-550: Was announced that some of the Historic Naval Hospital buildings would be restored to house a museum as part of a broader Port Royal Heritage Tourism Project. The town grew rapidly, reaching a population of around 6,500 people and approximately 2,000 dwellings, by 1692. As land on which to build diminished, it became common practice to either fill in areas of water and build new infrastructure on top of it, or simply build buildings taller. Buildings gradually became heavier as
11232-498: 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
11340-449: Was forced to continually defend their possessions from attack, providing them with no opportunity and no means with which to attempt to retake the land. Spain was unable to retake the island and, due to the privateers, could no longer regularly provide their colonies in the New World with manufactured goods. The progressive irregularity of annual Spanish fleets, combined with an increasing demand by colonies for manufactured goods, stimulated
11448-406: Was founded by the Spanish in 1534 as the capital of the colony. Later, it was also called Santiago de la Vega or St. Jago de la Vega . Indigenous Taino had been living in the area for approximately a millennium before this, but this was the first European habitation on the south of the island. When the English conquered Jamaica in 1655 , they renamed the settlement as Spanish Town in honour to
11556-534: 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
11664-451: Was made. A first phase of restoration was completed in April 2010, when the repair of the abutments allowed the bridge to be reopened for the public. More recently, violence in the area has prevented the bridge from achieving the status of a UNESCO World Heritage Site . In 2009, the population of Spanish Town was estimated to be about 160,000. The population of Spanish Town, like the rest of
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