A city charter or town charter (generically, municipal charter ) is a legal document ( charter ) establishing a municipality such as a city or town . The concept developed in Europe during the Middle Ages .
24-413: Traditionally, the granting of a charter gave a settlement and its inhabitants the right to town privileges under the feudal system . Townspeople who lived in chartered towns were burghers , as opposed to serfs who lived in villages. Towns were often " free ", in the sense that they were directly protected by the king or emperor, and were not part of a feudal fief . Today, the process for granting
48-567: A Geographic Names Information System that defines three classes of human settlement: Populated places may be specifically defined in the context of censuses and be different from general-purpose administrative entities, such as "place" as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau or census-designated places . In the field of geospatial predictive modeling , a settlement is "a city, town, village, or other agglomeration of buildings where people live and work". The Global Human Settlement Layer ( GHSL ) framework produces global spatial information about
72-415: A settlement , locality or populated place is a community of people living in a particular place . The complexity of a settlement can range from a minuscule number of dwellings grouped together to the largest of cities with surrounding urbanized areas . Settlements include hamlets , villages , towns and cities . A settlement may have known historical properties such as the date or era in which it
96-612: A state legislature by means of local legislation , or indirectly under a general municipal corporation law, usually after the proposed charter has passed a referendum vote of the affected population. A municipal charter is the basic document that defines the organization, powers, functions and essential procedures of the city government. The charter is, therefore, the most important legal document of any city. Municipalities without charters, in states where such exist, are known as general-law municipalities or cities . Human settlement In geography , statistics and archaeology ,
120-512: A National Register of Populated places (NRPP). The Canadian government uses the term "populated place" in the Atlas of Canada , but does not define it. Statistics Canada uses the term localities for historically named locations. The Croatian Bureau of Statistics records population in units called settlements ( naselja ) . The Census Commission of India has a special definition of census towns . The Central Statistics Office (CSO) of
144-498: A narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the plurale tantum woods ), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see differences between British , American and Australian English explained below). Some savannas may also be woodlands, such as savanna woodland , where trees and shrubs form a light canopy . Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses . Woodland may form
168-743: A populated place as "a named settlement with a population of 200 or more persons". The Committee for Geographical Names in Australasia used the term localities for rural areas, while the Australian Bureau of Statistics uses the term "urban centres/localities" for urban areas. The Agency for Statistics in Bosnia and Herzegovina uses the term "populated place" / "settled place" for rural (or urban as an administrative center of some Municipality/City), and "Municipality" and "City" for urban areas. The Bulgarian Government publishes
192-432: A special type of cultural-historical landscape studies. Settlements can be ordered by size, centrality or other factors to define a settlement hierarchy . A settlement hierarchy can be used for classifying settlement all over the world, although a settlement called a "town" in one country might be a "village" in other countries; or a "large town" in some countries might be a "city" in others. Geoscience Australia defines
216-399: A transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of primary or secondary succession . Higher-density areas of trees with a largely closed canopy that provides extensive and nearly continuous shade are often referred to as forests . Extensive efforts by conservationist groups have been made to preserve woodlands from urbanization and agriculture . For example,
240-618: Is a related designation used in the United States. The earliest geographical evidence of a human settlement was Jebel Irhoud , where early modern human remains of eight individuals date back to the Middle Paleolithic around 300,000 years ago. The oldest remains that have been found of constructed dwellings are remains of huts that were made of mud and branches around 17,000 BC at the Ohalo site (now underwater) near
264-557: Is determined by the type of government of the state in question. In monarchies, charters are still often a royal charter given by the Crown or the authorities acting on behalf of the Crown. In federations, the granting of charters may be within the jurisdiction of the lower level of government, such as a province . In Canada, charters are granted by provincial authorities . Since the beginning of American colonial rule, Philippines cities were formally established through laws enacted by
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#1732773049124288-552: Is processed fully automatically and generates analytics and knowledge reporting objectively and systematically about the presence of population and built-up infrastructures. The GHSL operates in an open and free data and methods access policy (open input, open method, open output). The term "Abandoned populated places" is a Feature Designation Name in databases sourced by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and GeoNames . Sometimes
312-635: Is used in British nature conservation to refer to any wooded land that has existed since 1600, and often (though not always) for thousands of years, since the last Ice Age (equivalent to the American term old-growth forest ) Woodlot is a closely related term in American forest management , which refers to a stand of trees generally used for firewood. While woodlots often technically have closed canopies, they are so small that light penetration from
336-627: The Philippine Congress has established 149 more cities (as of September 2024), the majority of which required the holding of a plebiscite within the proposed city's jurisdiction to ratify the city's charter. In Sweden until 1951, cities were established by royal charter . In the United Kingdom , cities are established by royal charter . In the United States , such charters are established either directly by
360-638: The Republic of Ireland has had a special definition of census towns . From the 2022 census of Ireland , the CSO introduced an urban geography unit called " Built Up Areas " (BUAs). The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics records population in units of settlements called Tehsil – an administrative unit derived from the Mughal era. There are various types of inhabited localities in Russia . Statistics Sweden uses
384-417: The edge makes them ecologically closer to woodland than forest. North American forests vary widely in their ecology and are greatly dependent on abiotic factors such as climate and elevation. Much of the old-growth deciduous and pine-dominated forests of the eastern United States was harvested for lumber, paper pulp, telephone poles, creosote, pitch, and tar. In Australia, a woodland is defined as an area with
408-577: The edge of the Sea of Galilee . The Natufians built houses, also in the Levant , around 10,000 BC. Remains of settlements such as villages become much more common after the invention of agriculture, The oldest of them is Jarmo , located in Iraq. Landscape history studies the form (morphology) of settlements – for example whether they are dispersed or nucleated . Urban morphology can thus be considered
432-400: The human presence on the planet over time. This in the form of built up maps, population density maps and settlement maps. This information is generated with evidence-based analytics and knowledge using new spatial data mining technologies. The framework uses heterogeneous data including global archives of fine-scale satellite imagery, census data, and volunteered geographic information. The data
456-408: The structures are still easily accessible, such as in a ghost town , and these may become tourist attractions. Some places that have the appearance of a ghost town, however, may still be defined as populated places by government entities. A town may become a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, because of a government action, such as the building of a dam that floods
480-598: The term localities ( tätort ) for various densely populated places. The common English-language translation is urban areas . The UK Department for Communities and Local Government uses the term "urban settlement" to denote an urban area when analysing census information. The Registrar General for Scotland defines settlements as groups of one or more contiguous localities, which are determined according to population density and postcode areas. The Scottish settlements are used as one of several factors defining urban areas. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has
504-422: The town, or because of natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, uncontrolled lawlessness, or war. The term is sometimes used to refer to cities, towns, and neighborhoods that are still populated, but significantly less so than in years past. Woodland A woodland ( / ˈ w ʊ d l ə n d / ) is, in the broad sense, land covered with woody plants ( trees and shrubs ), or in
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#1732773049124528-607: The various national legislatures in the country. The Philippine Commission gave the city of Manila its charter in 1901, while the city of Baguio was established by the Philippine Assembly which was composed by elected members instead of appointed ones. During the Commonwealth era , the National Assembly established an additional ten cities. Since achieving independence from the United States in 1946
552-646: The woodlands of Northwest Indiana have been preserved as part of the Indiana Dunes . Woodland is used in British woodland management to mean tree-covered areas which arose naturally and which are then managed. At the same time, forest is usually used in the British Isles to describe plantations , usually more extensive, or hunting Forests , which are a land use with a legal definition and may not be wooded at all. The term ancient woodland
576-542: Was first settled, or first settled by particular people. The process of settlement involves human migration . In the field of geospatial predictive modeling , settlements are "a city, town, village or other agglomeration of buildings where people live and work". A settlement conventionally includes its constructed facilities such as roads , enclosures , field systems , boundary banks and ditches , ponds , parks and woodlands , wind and water mills , manor houses , moats and churches . An unincorporated area
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