Types of inhabited localities in Russia, Soviet Union, and some other post-Soviet states have certain peculiarities with respect to the English language traditions. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Modern classification

The inhabited localities of Russia are subdivided into two major categories: urban and rural.

Urban localities

• Город (gorod), translated as either town or city. The Russian language has no separate words for "town" and "city". Officially, towns are classified by their population count (see below). Additionally, towns are classified by their level of jurisdiction (raion/oblast/krai/republican/federal). In translation, the word "city" is traditionally applied to the towns with population of at least 100,000.
  • Superlarge (сверхкрупные города): over 3,000,000.
  • Larger (крупнейшие города): 1,000,000–3,000,000,
  • Large (крупные города): 250,000–1,000,000.
  • Big (большие города): 100,000–250,000.
  • Medium (средние города): 50,000–100,000.
  • Small (малые города, городки): less than 50,000.
• Посёлок городского типа (posyolok gorodskogo tipa), translated as "urban-type settlement", is a type of smaller urban locality. There are several subtypes of urban-type settlements:
  • Urban-type settlement proper—mostly urban population of 3,000–12,000.
    • Work settlement (рабочий посёлок)—mostly urban population occupied in industrial manufacture.
    • Builders' settlement (посёлок строителей)—mostly urban population occupied in construction.
    • Suburban (dacha) settlement (дачный посёлок)—typically, a suburban settlement with summer dachas.
    • Beach settlement (курортный посёлок)—mostly urban population occupied in beach services.
    • Station (станция)—mostly urban population occupied in transportation industry.

Main street in Bastrop, Texas, a small town A town is a residential community of people ranging from a few hundred to several thousands, although it may be applied loosely even to huge metropolitan areas. ... The city of Chicago, as seen from the sky The main square of the Catalan city of Sabadell during a popular celebration. ... Russian ( , transliteration: russkiy yazyk, ) is the most widely spoken language of Eurasia and the most widespread of the Slavic languages. ... A raion (or rayon) (Russian and Ukrainian: ; Belarusian раён; Azeri: rayon, Latvian: rajons, Georgian: , raioni) is one of two kinds of administrative subdivisions in languages of some post-Soviet states: a subnational entity and a subdivision of a city. ... Oblast (Czech: oblast, Slovak: oblasÅ¥, Russian and Ukrainian: , Belarusian: , Bulgarian: о́бласт) refers to a subnational entity in some countries. ... Krai (Russian: край; British English transliteration: kray), is a term used to refer to several of Russias 89 administrative regions (federal subjects). ... Forms of government Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      For other uses, see Republic (disambiguation). ... Urban-type settlement (Russian: , posyolok gorodskogo tipa; Ukrainian: , selyshche miskoho typu; abbreviated as in Russian and as in Ukrainian) is an official designation for a certain type of urban settlements used in some of the countries of the former Soviet Union. ... Dacha of Boris Pasternak in Peredelkino. ...

Rural localities

• Посёлок сельского типа (posyolok selskogo tipa), or simply "посёлок", translated as "rural-type settlement". The "rural-type" (сельского типа) designation is added to the settlements the population of which is mostly occupied in agriculture, while posyolok (посёлок) proper indicates a mix of population working in agriculture and industry.

There are also several other types of rural localities:

• Larger rural-type localities, with population of 500–3,000:
  • Село (selo)—translated as "village".
  • Станица (stanitsa)—historically, a Cossack rural settlement. The name is still currently in use, with the basic meaning of "village".
  • Слобода (sloboda)—historically, a settlement freed from taxes and levies for various reasons. The name is still currently in use with the basic meaning of "village".
• Smaller rural localities, with population fewer than 500:
• Деревня (derevnya)—translated as "village". (See a satellite image of a typical Russian village of Maslovo, near Tver.)
• Хутор (khutor)—translated as "hamlet" or "farmstead", a rural settlement of one or several families.
• Рыбацкий посёлок (rybatsky posyolok) —translated as "fishermen's settlement", a shore settlement of the rural type with the population occupied in the fishing industry.
• Починок (pochinok)—a newly formed rural settlement of one of several families. Pochinoks are established as new settlements and usually grow into larger villages as they develop.
• In automonous republics of Russia, national terminology is used in the Russian language. Such settlement types include аул (aul), аал (aal), and кишлак (kishlak).

This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Stanitsa (Russian: , pronounces stah-nee-tsah) is a village inside a Cossack host or Cossack voisko (Казачье войско, kazachye voysko, sometimes incorrectly translated as Cossack Army). ... Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of Ottoman Empire. ... Sloboda was a kind of settlement in the history of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. ... Tvers coat of arms depicts grand ducal crown placed on a throne. ... Khutor or hutor (Russian: ; Ukrainian: , Khutir) was usually a single-homestead rural settlement (farmstead) in Ukraine, Russia, and some parts of Central Asia. ... A hamlet is (usually — see below) a small settlement, too small or unimportant to be considered a village. ... Bales of hay on a farm near Ames, Iowa A farm is the basic unit in agriculture. ... An aoul is a type of fortified village found throughout the Caucasus mountains, especially in Dagestan. ...

Classification of rural localities according to their population counts

• Large: over 5,000.
• Big: 1,000–5,000.
• Medium: 200–1,000.
• Small: less than 200.

Historical terms

• Krepost (крепость, a fort), a fortified settlement. A Kremlin, Russian citadel, is a major krepost usually including a castle and surrounded by posad. Ostrog, on the other hand, was a more primitive kind of krepost which could be put up quickly within rough walls of debarked pointed timber.
• Posad (посад), a medieval suburban settlement.
• Mestechko (местечко, from Polish: miasteczko; Yiddish: shtetl), a small town in Western Krai annexed during the Partitions of Poland; typically with Jewish majority.

Table of Fortification, from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ... Moscow Kremlin in the 19th century. ... A posad (посад) was a settlement, often rounded by bulwarks and a moat, by a town or a kremlin, but outside the town/kremlin, or by a monastery in the 10th to 15th centuries. ... A posad (посад) was a settlement, often rounded by bulwarks and a moat, by a town or a kremlin, but outside the town/kremlin, or by a monastery in the 10th to 15th centuries. ... Yiddish (ייִדיש, Jiddisch) is a Germanic language spoken by about four million Jews throughout the world. ... A shtetl or shtetele (Yiddish: , diminutive form of Yiddish shtot, town) was typically a small town or village with a large Jewish population in pre-Holocaust Central and Eastern Europe. ... The Partitions of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Polish: Rozbiór Polski or Rozbiory Polski; Lithuanian: Lietuvos-Lenkijos padalijimai, Belarusian: Падзелы Рэчы Паспалітай) took place in the 18th century and ended the existence of the sovereign Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. ...

See also

• Subdivisions of Russia
• List of terms for country subdivisions