Re: [Gramps-users] "City" and Place terminology

[Peter K. <pj...@gm...>]

Well, living in London (UK), I would have no problem calling my city a
"settlement" if it made good sense for database purposes.

I did not check any definitions of "settlement" before I made my
suggestion, but Wikipedia gives a definition that looks near-perfect,
for our purposes:

"A settlement is a general term used in archaeology, geography,
landscape history and other subjects for a permanent or temporary
community in which people live, without being specific as to size,
population or importance. A settlement can therefore range in size
from a small number of dwellings grouped together to the largest of
cities with surrounding urbanized areas. The term may include hamlets,
villages, towns and cities."

In the Gramps hierarchy we need a word to describe the things that
falls between "Country", "State" and "County" [all of which are
administrationally- or politically-defined regions], and "Church
parish" [a religiously-defined region]. A city/town/village/settlement
is a physical thing: a collection of dwellings.

The fact that "settlement" is the preferred term in disciplies such as
"archaeology, geography, landscape history and other subjects"
suggests it has been carefully considered and accepted by many.

Peter


On 19 August 2011 13:42, Gerald Britton <ger...@gm...> wrote:
> I'm not sure many New Yorkers would go for having their home called a
> "settlement"  but you'd have to ask them I suppose.  In my case, the
> name of my "settlement" -- Toronto -- is an old First Nations (Mohawk,
> I believe) word meaning meeting place.  Maybe we should use "Meeting
> Place" instead of city or settlement.
>
> On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 8:02 AM, Peter Kidd <pj...@gm...> wrote:
>> May I suggest that instead of the word "city" (which in England is
>> distinguished from a "town" by the fact that it has a cathedral)
>> is replaced with "settlement": this is a neutral term that would cover a
>> city, town, village, and even a hamlet. Presumably there is an equivalent of
>> "settlement" in other languages for which Gramps is available.
>> Peter
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>
> --
> Gerald Britton
>