Types of settlements in Russia, Soviet Union, and some other post-Soviet states have certain peculiarities with respect to the English language traditions. Some terminology described here is obsolete and is used in historical descriptions. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Russian Federation

According to the Land Code of the Russian Federation, the settlements are subdivided into two major categories: settlements of urban type and settlements of rural type.

Settlements of urban type

• 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 clasified 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 towns (сверхкрупные города): over 3,000,000.
  • Larger towns (крупнейшие города): 1,000,000–3,000,000,
  • Large towns (крупные города): 250,000–1,000,000.
  • Big towns (большие города): 100,000–250,000.
  • Medium towns (средние города): 50,000–100,000.
  • Small towns (малые города, городки): less than 50,000.
• Посёлок городского типа (posyolok gorodskogo tipa), translated as "urban-type settlement", or townlet, is a type of smaller urban settlements. 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.
  • 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 In American English, a town is usually a municipal corporation that is smaller than a city but larger than a village. ... Melbourne, Australia by night For alternate meanings see city (disambiguation) A city is an urban area that is differentiated from a town, village, or hamlet by size, population density, importance, or legal status. ... Russian (Russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, â–¶(?)) is the most widely spoken language of Europe and the most widespread of the Slavic languages. ... See rayon for the textile made of processed cellulose. ... An oblast (Slavonian verbalism or term, Czech: oblast, Slovak: oblasÅ¥, Russian, Ukrainian: о́бласть, Bulgarian: о́бласт) English equivalent area, province or zone. ... Krai (Russian: край; British English transliteration: kray), is a term used to refer to several of Russias 89 administrative regions (federal subjects). ... In a broad definition, a republic is a state whose political organization rests on the principle that the citizens or electorate constitute the ultimate root of legitimacy and sovereignty. ... Townlet is an attempt to translate the Russian term posyolok gorodskogo tipa (посёлок городского типа) or the similar Ukrainian selyshche miskoho typu (селище міського типу)—literally urban-type settlement. A townlet was one of the results of Soviet urban design, a locality intermediate in character and status between towns...

Settlements of rural type

• 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-type settlements:

• Larger rural settlements, 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".
  • Дачный посёлок (dachny posyolok)—typically, a suburban settlement with summer dachas.
• Smaller rural settlements, 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.
• In automonous republics of Russia, national terminology is used in the Russian language. Such settlement types include аул (aoul, or aul) and кишлак (kishlak).

A village is a human settlement commonly found in rural areas. ... 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). ... The Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of Turkey. ... Sloboda was a kind of settlement in the history of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. ... Dacha ▶(?) (Russian: да́ча) is a name for summer home or vacation house in Russia and CIS countries where people spend their summer holidays and grow fruit and vegetables for their own use. ... 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 settlements according to their population counts

• Large rural settlements: over 5,000.
• Big rural settlements: 1,000–5,000.
• Medium rural settlements: 200–1,000.
• Small rural settlements: 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.

Nakhal Fort, one of the best-preserved forts in Oman. ... Kremlin (Кремль) is the Russian word for citadel or castle and refers to any major fortified central complex found in historical Russian cities. ... 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 (שטעטל, in Yiddish, derived from the German städtlein, meaning little town/city) was typically a small town or village with a large Jewish population in pre-Holocaust Central Europe and Eastern Europe. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ...

See also

• Subdivisions of Russia
• List of terms for subnational entities