What is a city? What is its structure? And what names are usually called cities? You will find the answer to all these questions in our article.
The city is ...
The first cities on the planet began to appear about ten thousand years ago. They arose on the shores of the seas or large rivers (Danube, Dnieper, Euphrates). Up to 5-10 thousand people already lived in some of them (as, for example, in the proto-cities of the Tripoli culture).
A city is a relatively large settlement, the population of which is mainly employed in industry or the service sector. Why is it relative? Yes, because in the world there is no single framework (in terms of area or number of population), according to which, one or another settlement could be attributed to the city. So, in Denmark, a village can be considered a city in which only 250 people live. But in Japan, such a status can get a village with a population of at least 50,000 inhabitants.
In a historical context, a city is a village that has a specific list of characteristic features. Among these are the availability of trade and administrative facilities, stone buildings and fortifications, weapons and military equipment. In ancient times, cities were often surrounded by a picket fence, earthen or stone fortifications.
The study of various aspects of urban life is a special science - urban studies. But the device, the structure of the city is more interested in a discipline called urban planning.
City structure
Perhaps the most important element of any city is the network of its streets and means of communication. Quarries of residential buildings, business districts and industrial facilities are strung on it.
Any city, as a rule, consists of several functional zones. It:
- residential;
- industrial;
- recreational;
- zone of administrative, commercial and financial institutions.
Each of these zones is distinguished by its characteristic type of development.
Any urban settlement has its borders. This is a line that is drawn on maps and legally fixed. The city, as a rule, grows from the center to the periphery, in the direction of its main radial roads. Over time, it can even absorb suburban villages, towns, and even other small towns.
What are the cities called?
Each city, like a person, has its own name. The science that studies the names of settlements is called toponymy.
Listed below are the most popular ways to create city names. So, most often they come from:
- personal names of any outstanding personalities (for example, Washington, Khmelnitsky, Kirov, San Francisco);
- names of nearby rivers, often with the addition of the prefix -a- (Moscow, Lensk, Volgograd, Frankfurt, Rostov-on-Don);
- geographical features of a particular territory (Pyatigorsk, Zelenograd, Krivoy Rog, Rivne);
- names of professions or crafts (Rybinsk, Nefteyugansk);
- from the old city names, by specifying them (New York, Novomoskovsk, Verkhnedneprovsk).
City in Russian space
What does a typical Russian city look like? And what features does it differ from others?
Cities of Russia, concentrating about 73% of the total population of the country, occupy only 2 percent of its territory. Most often they are scattered across the vast plain expanses of the state and are connected by freeways or railways. The number of city dwellers significantly increased during the era of industrialization, when former villagers were actively moving to cities in search of a prosperous and carefree life. And in some cases, the villages themselves turned into cities, without even changing their names. So, in modern Russia there are urban settlements with clearly rural names (Seltso, Alekseevka, Kozlovka).
Today, within the Russian Federation, there are 1113 cities.
New cities of Russia
In Russia, there are very ancient cities with a long history (the oldest is Derbent in Dagestan). And there are also very young ones, those that were founded no more than a hundred years ago.
Under the "new city" in the post-Soviet space is often meant a settlement that arose on the maps in the second half of the twentieth century (after the Second World War). As a rule, such cities were created as industrial and narrow-profile.
In Russia, there are at least fifty so-called new cities. The most famous of these are Novy Urengoy, Nefteyugansk, Novovoronezh, Nizhnekamsk, Zhigulevsk.
The concept of urban area
Larger cities can also be divided into smaller administrative units. This practice is common in the post-Soviet space.
City districts can usually be found in cities with a population of over 200 thousand people. At the time of the collapse of the USSR, there were 143 such settlements.
In modern Russia, there are more than 300 urban administrative regions. Examples of such cities: Moscow, Barnaul, Vladivostok, Samara, St. Petersburg and others. In some of them, the districts of the city were renamed into districts (for example, in Arkhangelsk, Kursk, Belgorod, Kaluga).
Finally...
The city is a relatively large settlement (primarily in terms of population), with a developed industry, services, infrastructure and high-rise buildings. Cities can vary greatly in area, population, configuration, and the functions they are called upon to perform.
In Russia, there are 1113 cities. Among them there are both very ancient (for example, Bryansk, Onega, Suzdal), and even young cities that were founded in the 20th century (these are Novovoronezh, Kaspiysk, Sayansk and others).