city

Generally, a large and important town. In the Middle East and historic Europe, and in the ancient civilizations of Mexico and Peru, cities were states in themselves. In the early Middle Ages, European cities were usually those towns that were episcopal sees (seats of bishops).

Cities cover only 2% of the Earth's surface but use 75% of all resources. In April 1996, the World Resources Report predicted that two-thirds of the world's population will live in cities by 2025. Cities with more than 10 million inhabitants are sometimes referred to as megacities. In 1997 there were 18 megacities, 13 of them in developing nations.

In the USA, a city is an incorporated municipality whose boundaries and powers of self-government are defined by charter from the state in which it is located. In the USA a city may be defined as an incorporated municipality, governed like a former English borough by a mayor, aldermen, and common council. For all practical purposes the term is synonymous with municipal corporation. Cities existed in Virginia from the start of American colonial history, though it is not clear that these cities were chartered, or that the title they assumed was anything more than vainglory.

Origins The Romans used the word civitas to denote the whole state or body politic, urbs and municipium being applied to towns. This meaning of the word has been totally lost in modern times, but the large cities of the modern world do somewhat resemble the cities of ancient Greece in their local self-government.

The Greek polis (city state) represented a collection of families, gathered together within a certain space, who administered their own foreign and domestic affairs, and had their own religion. These cities were only bound by affection to the metropolis (mother city), of which they were, in a sense, colonies.

The indeterminate use of the word ‘city’ probably began at a very early date. Du Cange in his glossary of medieval Latin words defines the word civitas as urbs episcopalis, and says that towns were called oppida or castra.

Modern cities In 1950, 83 cities worldwide had a population of 1 million or more; by 1996 there were 280, and it is estimated that by 2015 there will be more than 500.

In the 1980s the term edge city was coined to denote the growth of business sites, supermarkets, and other retail sites around the edge of both urban and suburban regions. Typically they are used by day but have no residential population.