What exactly is it that makes a town a city? I have often heard that the defining line is Population> 10k, but the furthest east city in the US, Eastport,Maine, has a population of about ~1800. IIRC there are “towns” with populations greater than 60k. Is there a clear definition at all?
Nope, no definitions except “I know one when I see one.”
Each U.S. state has a unique definition of what a city is. I assume that each country where things are decided at the federal level has a distinct definition for that country. Population is often a factor, but those definitions tended in the U.S. to be created early in the state’s history so don’t reflect modern assumptions.
City boundaries themselves are mostly meaningless in the modern era. The metropolitan area is really the “city” but except in a few cases (Jacksonville merged with its county, e.g.) are split up into dozens or hundreds of municipal governments.
Other countries have more freedom to change boundaries. Beijing is turning into a supercity the size of Kansas. That’s probably more meaningful than many of our cities, whose city boundaries may take in only 10% of the metro area population.
Cities need to be defined specifically for each use if you need to make distinctions. Noting else works.
In North Carolina, there is no functional difference between a town and a city, and it is up to the communities to choose what to call themselves. The town of Cary had an estimated population of 151,088 as of July 1, 2013, and is the state’s seventh largest municipality. However, is is mostly a sprawling suburb of Raleigh, and its downtown isn’t much larger than it was in the 1960s, so it has kept the town designation.
In common usage town and city are pretty much interchangeable, however people sometimes pick one term over the other based on the perception of where they live. I live just outside of a ‘village’, which is usually smaller than a town and has no municipal government. If you talk to people who live there and said they lived in a ‘city’ they would laugh at you, although they sometimes refer to where they live as a town and sometimes as a village. We depend on tourists during the summer months so by using the term village we present an image that is different than using the term town, however as far as the state of Montana is concerned we are a village. If we incorporate and elect a mayor we would instantly become a town.
In the UK a city is granted that status by the Queen. Originally (1540s) a city was a town with a cathedral, but these days, there are other requirements and some towns like Rochester have a cathedral but are not cities.
The City of London is a special case and is more or less the original Roman city surrounded by a wall (you can still see parts of it) The City (note the capital ‘C’) is the financial centre (downtown?) of London, and has its own police force. The Mayor is a figurehead these days but still politically important. Dick Whittington was real (although the cat was probably not).
I think it all depends on where you live. In the state I live in I would never call any place a village. I think places under about 5,000 are called towns, over about 5,000 cities-except for a place which is attached to a central city. I call them suburbs regardless of their population.
I don’t know if any other states are like this, but in North Dakota any incorporated place is a city. So you get things like the City of Sentinel Butte, population 56.
In CA (at least around where I live), it’s popular to call the “downtown” area of a small town or city “the village”. If, for instance, I go into Saratoga (upscale suburb of San Jose) to go wine tasting, it’ll be in “the village”, which is a few block area just before the main road heads up into the mountains. Lots of restaurants, independent shops and such.
Same in SC. When the population of an unincorporated area vote to incorporate, they also vote what the new municipality should be called: “city,” “town,” or “village.”
IIRC, in Massachusetts…
Townwide elections elect the board of selectmen, school board, board of assessors, and several other boards. Those boards are members of the Exeutive branch of government and report to the voters. There is no central government. The town voters are the Legislative Branch of government.
A city has a more centralized government with counselors who pass laws. They are the Legislative Branch of government. Cities have a mayor, who can veto stuff just like the president. Different boards report to the mayor who is the senior member of the Executive Branch of government.
If it’s got a mayor, it’s a city.
In Australia, a local government area (LGA) can be a shire, municipality, city, or a few other things, depending on how the State Government has defined it. Each state would have its own criteria, depending on such things as population and urban v. rural, and over time the same LGA can change. For example, immediately south of here, the City of Lake Macquarie was a shire 1906-1977 and a municipality 1977-1986.
On the other hand, in Australia a “town” is generally an unincorporated urban centre, so the City of Lake Macquarie includes several towns as well as some suburbs in the Newcastle metropolitan area.
In Missouri we have towns, villages and various types of cities.
A village is an unicorporated area of less than 500 people. Because it’s unincorporated, a village can’t pass laws, hire employees or do much of anything. It’s just a place on the map. About the only power it has is to appoint trustees to keep the streets repaired.
A town has fixed boundaries. It’s governed by an elected board of trustees with certain powers, like establishing a police force, building and maintaining streets and parks, and regulating certain businesses.
Cities come with a broader set of powers depending on their class (which is related to their size.) They can hire a city manager to actually run the business, zone different areas for different activities, enact ordinances, own their own utilities and in general do most of the things you expect a local government to do.
New York has towns, cities, and villages. Every county is divided into towns and cities - there is no unincorporated space at the county level. Towns may have villages incorporated within them. Some villages occupy the whole town (e.g. Scarsdale) and others are enclaves within the town. Some villages cross town borders, e.g. the Village of Mamaroneck is mostly in the Town of Mamaroneck but a chunk of it is in the Town of Rye. (There’s also a City of Rye next door. But cities are not within towns, so it’s completely separate from the town of Rye. (Oh, also the Town of Rye has villages called Rye Brook and Rye Neck (most of which is actually located in the town of Mamaroneck. (Confused yet?))))
New York City is a special case and operates under its own charter.
And it’s an honorific title rather than a definition of local government powers or boundaries, which are set by Parliament in legislation, and have changed over the years. I can remember the time when most of what most people think of as cities were, in legal terms, “county boroughs”. Then some of them became “metropolitan counties” ( but others were just district councils) and then some took over their surrounding suburban districts and became “unitary authorities”, and now they’re dickering around with allowing a whole lot of them to combine in metropolitan regions (provided they move to being run by an executive mayor).
But they can still be called cities, or not. Or some that aren’t quite can be Royal Boroughs if they’re very, very good.
Well, it all keeps a lot of people very busy.
Depends on the size of the town. Town Meeting, which convenes at a set time of year, is the legislative branch. In some towns Town Meeting is everyone in town - anyone can go to Town Meeting and debate on and vote on the Warrant articles (law changes). In other towns, including the one I live in, you elect your Town Meeting Members for your Precinct and those people go to Town Meeting and vote on your behalf. In my town each precinct elects 4 Town Meeting Members. Anyone can go to Town Meeting and observe, and make comments to the Meeting, and introduce articles for the Warrant, but only TMMs can vote on the Warrant. It’s very New England. 
A city is a public corporation granted “home rule” rights by the respective state legislature. Incorporation allows the city to enter into contracts under its own name, as well as assume debt liabilities. They generally assume responsibility for the maintenance of infrastructure within their boundaries, and have an a fulltime local government able to provide responsive services.
A town, however, traditionally only has a part-time government with a handful of employees. In Connecticut, specifically, the town was responsible for a relatively large swath of land, but would only provide very basic services. As development spread, residents might petition the legislature to split into a separate town. Resident’s might also petition to form a city within the a town, to provide additional public services to that area. Most cities eventually consolidated with their parent towns to provide all public services. (Because Connecticut is very densely populated, it has granted all towns the same rights as a city, making the distinction mostly a formality. A city still has a special charter from the state, but has no additional rights)
Other states have county governments that provide a similar set of limited services. A town or township might be formed when an area requires more services than the county can provide. In these scenarios, when a community is incorporated as a city, it because either formally or functionally separate from the county. Other times, the county provides very limited, specialized services, such as court districts and public prosecutors, while cities and towns provide ordinary services, such as road, sewers, etc.
Cities and towns, however, are not the only forms of local government. School districts are often separate legal entities from the towns they serve, although they do not possess general municipal authority that the town or city provides. Similarly, public utility districts, such as sewer districts chartered to provide sanitary services, are locally controlled, but have limited authority delegate to it. The town or city, by contrast, has broad authority delegated to provide or arrange for services for its residents.
Basically, the differences between a city and town depends on the details of the charter from the state. Broadly speaking, cities have traditionally had more municipal powers than towns, but this varies from state to state, and even county to county, and in many cases the differences is now a mere formality.
Further, in my general experience as well, “cities” tend to be centers of economic activity, whereas “towns” provide a supporting role. The most obvious indicator of the difference, I find, is that the “city” will have general hospital, with full emergency and inpatient services, that will serve the surrounding region.
Towns may have satellite locations, such as standalone emergency rooms or out-patient surgery centers, but the main hospital will be in the community broadly recognized as a city (whether or not the charter formally calls it a city).
I’m not sure what you mean by this - maybe it’s something specific to where I live or where you live , but city (and county and town) boundaries make a lot of difference in my life. On this side of the boundary, my city taxes pay for police, fire and sanitation departments- on the other side , the taxes may only pay for police while the fire department is volunteer and I might have to pay by the bag or arrange for my own trash pickup. All services are provided by either the city or the state or some combination - there aren’t any independent school districts, library districts, water districts etc. Those services are funded predominantly based on an income tax, unlike surrounding areas which fund services mostly with property taxes which are imposed separately by the town and any special districts. Parking and driving rules are likely to have some differences and there are also other differences in local laws.
The only way in which I can see that city boundaries are “meaningless” is that a metropolitan area economy basically has a interconnected economy - but if that makes city boundaries meaningless, then state boundaries must also be meaningless because a metropolitan area can cross state lines ( the NYC metropolitan area includes parts of four states)
That sounds like something a smallish “upscale” community would do. Is the downtown area of Los Gatos also called “The Village”?
Los Gatos is officially a “town”, which as far as I know simply means that they’ve decided to call themselves a town.
Interesting that the boundary of a city is usually called “city limits”, while the boundary of a town is usually called the “town line”. IIRC, the signs along the roads where you enter Los Gatos actually say “town line” on them, and IIRC I’ve seen that in a few other California “towns” too.
Every square inch of Wisconsin has a municipal government. Rural areas that are not part of a chartered village or city are within a township and usually called Town of Something (i.e.Town of Union, Town of Washington, etc.). Some towns have a population & density large enough to support their own police and fire departments. Others are very rural with only a few hundred residents or even just a few dozen residents.
The difference between a village and a city is dependent upon it’s charter granted to it by the state. There are villages that have a larger population than some cities. For instance, the Village of Ashwaubenon in the Green Bay metropolitan area has a population of about 17,000 while the City of Peshtigo somewhat north of Green Bay has a population of only about 3,500.
Villages have a village board and president while cities have a mayor and city council. In the case of the city of Eau Claire they don’t have a mayor but an appointed city administrator and elected council for some reason.Towns have a town board.