Portal:Cities

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

The Cities Portal

P:CITY

A city is a human settlement of a notable size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agreed definition of the lower boundary for their size. In a more narrow sense, a city can be defined as a permanent and densely settled place with administratively defined boundaries whose members work primarily on non-agricultural tasks. Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, production of goods, and communication. Their density facilitates interaction between people, government organizations, and businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process, such as improving the efficiency of goods and service distribution.

Historically, city dwellers have been a small proportion of humanity overall, but following two centuries of unprecedented and rapid urbanization, more than half of the world population now lives in cities, which has had profound consequences for global sustainability. Present-day cities usually form the core of larger metropolitan areas and urban areas—creating numerous commuters traveling toward city centres for employment, entertainment, and education. However, in a world of intensifying globalization, all cities are to varying degrees also connected globally beyond these regions. This increased influence means that cities also have significant influences on global issues, such as sustainable development, climate change, and global health. Because of these major influences on global issues, the international community has prioritized investment in sustainable cities through Sustainable Development Goal 11. Due to the efficiency of transportation and the smaller land consumption, dense cities hold the potential to have a smaller ecological footprint per inhabitant than more sparsely populated areas. Therefore, compact cities are often referred to as a crucial element in fighting climate change. However, this concentration can also have significant negative consequences, such as forming urban heat islands, concentrating pollution, and stressing water supplies and other resources. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected city - show another

Skyline of Naples with Mount Vesuvius

Naples (/ˈneɪpəlz/ NAY-pəlz; Italian: Napoli [ˈnaːpoli] ^ⓘ; Neapolitan: Napule [ˈnɑːpulə]) is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's administrative limits as of 2022. Its province-level municipality is the third-most populous metropolitan city in Italy with a population of 3,115,320 residents, and its metropolitan area stretches beyond the boundaries of the city wall for approximately 30 kilometres (20 miles).

Founded by Greeks in the first millennium BC, Naples is one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban areas in the world. In the eighth century BC, a colony known as Parthenope (Ancient Greek: Παρθενόπη) was established on the Pizzofalcone hill. In the sixth century BC, it was refounded as Neápolis. The city was an important part of Magna Graecia, played a major role in the merging of Greek and Roman society, and was a significant cultural centre under the Romans. (Full article...)

List of selected cities

Did you know - Show different entries

... that the 32-story Bridge Apartments in New York City were built directly above a 12-lane freeway?
... that Times Square Tower and 5 Times Square, across the street from each other, were built for rival accounting firms during a redevelopment of New York City's Times Square?
... that in the 1917 municipal election in Minsk, Belorussian parties only won 2 out of 102 seats?
... that in 2007, Jeremiah Moss started Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, a blog that functions as a "digital obituary column" for old New York City small businesses lost to gentrification?
... that The Onion said in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court that "the federal judiciary is staffed entirely by total Latin dorks"?
... that La La Land's composer initially wanted "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)" to be the film's "award song" instead of "City of Stars"?

Related portals

Related WikiProjects

Recognized content - show another

Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.

Skyline of Mobile

Mobile (/moʊˈbiːl/ moh-BEEL, French: [mɔbil] ^ⓘ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population was 187,041 at the 2020 census. After a successful vote to annex areas west of the city limits in July 2023, Mobile's population increased to 204,689 residents, making it the second-most populous city in Alabama, after Huntsville. Mobile is the principal municipality of the Mobile metropolitan area, a region of 430,197 residents composed of Mobile and Washington counties; it is the third-largest metropolitan area in the state.

Alabama's only saltwater port, Mobile is located on the Mobile River at the head of Mobile Bay on the north-central Gulf Coast. The Port of Mobile has always played a key role in the economic health of the city, beginning with the settlement as an important trading center between the French colonists and Native Americans, down to its current role as the 12th-largest port in the United States. (Full article...)

List of Recognized articles

Selected article - show another

City status in the United Kingdom is granted by the monarch of the United Kingdom to specific centres of population, which might or might not meet the generally accepted definition of cities. , there are 76 cities in the United Kingdom—55 in England, seven in Wales, eight in Scotland, and six in Northern Ireland. Although it carries no special rights, the status of city can be a marker of prestige and confer local pride.

The status does not apply automatically on the basis of any particular criterion, though in England and Wales it was traditionally given to towns with diocesan cathedrals. This association between having an Anglican cathedral and being called a city was established in the early 1540s when King Henry VIII founded dioceses (each having a cathedral in the see city) in six English towns and granted them city status by issuing letters patent. A city with a cathedral is often termed a cathedral city. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

General images - load new batch

Image 1Cain founding the city of Enoch (from History of cities)
Image 2New York City, one of the largest urban areas in the world (from Urban geography)
Image 3The Round city of Baghdad, the capital of Iraq (from History of cities)
Image 4Gdańsk in the 17th century (from History of cities)
Image 5Aerial photograph shows the remains of the Sumerian city Ur, near Nasiriyah, Iraq. (from History of cities)
Image 6The "Great Colonnade" marks the cardo maximus of Apamea, Syria. (from History of cities)
Image 7The city of Arbil in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has a radial urban structure centred on an ancient fortress (from Urban structure)
Image 8Extent and major sites of the Indus Valley civilization of ancient India (from History of cities)
Image 9The Avenue of the Dead in Teotihuacan originates with the Pyramid of the Moon, forming the basis of the city grid. (from History of cities)
Image 10Daily life of people from the Song period at the capital, Bianjing, today's Kaifeng (from History of cities)
Image 11A map showing the world energy consumption per capita based on 2013 data from the World Bank. (from Urban geography)
Image 12Palmanova, Italy, constructed in 1593 according to the defensive ideal of the star fort, today retains its distinctive geometry. (from History of cities)
Image 13Excavated foundations of Çatalhöyük, Turkey. An Anatolian town dated to 7000 BCE. (from History of cities)
Image 14A poster from the EPA entitled "Soak Up the Rain with Green Infrastructure." The poster depicts various green infrastructure that can be effective in preventing floods. (from Urban geography)
Image 15View of the Agora of Athens with the temple of Hephaestus to the left and the Stoa of Attalos to the right (from History of cities)
Image 16This woodcut shows Nuremberg as a prototype of a flourishing and independent city in the 15th century. (from History of cities)
Image 17Constantinople, the largest and wealthiest city in Europe from the 9th through the 12th century (from History of cities)
Image 18Mohenjo-daro, a World Heritage Site that was part of the Indus Valley civilization (from History of cities)
Image 19Glasgow slum in 1871 (from History of cities)

edit

Topics

List articles

– Lists of cities –

More list articles

Subcategories

Category puzzle

Select [►] to view subcategories

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Commons
Free media repository
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals
Wikidata
Free knowledge base
Wikinews
Free-content news
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations
Wikisource
Free-content library
Wikiversity
Free learning tools
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus

Discover Wikipedia using portals

Purge server cache

v t e Cities
Urban geography	Urban area City centre Downtown Suburb Core city Twin cities Satellite city Edge city Commuter town City proper limits Conurbation Metropolitan area Metropolis Megalopolis Cities with the most skyscrapers Urbanization Suburbanization Shrinking cities Ghost town
Urban government	City status Municipality direct-controlled Independent city City-state Autonomous city Capital city
Urban economics	World's cities by GDP Global city Central business district Most expensive cities Cheapest cities Most livable cities Urban decay Urban renewal Municipal bond Habitat III
Urban planning	History of urban planning Theories of urban planning Technical aspects of urban planning Urban planners Zoning Mixed-use development Urban design Grid plan Concentric zone model Sector model Multiple nuclei model Linear city Land use Smart city
Urban population	World's largest cities throughout history Most densely populated cities Most populous national capitals Most populous satellite cities
Urbanism	Urban warfare Urban studies Urban morphology Urban culture Urban sociology Anti-urbanism Urban exploration Urban homesteading Unitary urbanism
Environment	Climate change Green urbanism Sustainable city Sustainable urbanism Sustainable Development Goal 11 Urban heat island Urban ecology

v t e World's largest cities
City proper	Capitals Americas (North Latin Central South) Asia (Arab world ASEAN Arabia East, South and Southeast Asia) Europe (European Union Nordic)
Metropolitan area	Americas (North South West Indies) Europe (European Union Nordic) Asia Africa Middle East
Urban area/agglomeration	Asia Africa Europe European Union Nordic North America Oceania Transborder
Historical	World Europe
Related articles	Arcology Ecumenopolis Global city Megacity Megalopolis Conurbation Satellite city population Primate city Secondary city