What is a city? What is its structure? And by what names are cities usually called? 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 Trypillia culture).
City is a relatively large settlement, the population of which is mainly employed in industry or services. Why relatively? Yes, because there is no single framework in the world (in terms of area or population), according to which, one or another settlement could be attributed to the city. So, in Denmark, a village with only 250 people can be considered a city. But in Japan, a village with a population of at least 50,000 inhabitants can receive such a status.
In a historical context, a city is a village that is distinguished by a certain list of characteristic features. Among these are the presence of objects of trade and administration, stone buildings and fortifications, weapons and militaryequipment. In ancient times, cities were very often surrounded by palisades, earth 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 its network of streets and communications. Blocks of residential buildings, business districts and industrial facilities are strung on it.
Any city, as a rule, consists of several functional zones. This is:
- 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 own borders. This is a line that is drawn on the maps and is legally fixed. The city, as a rule, grows from the center to the peripheries, in the direction of its main radial roads. Over time, it may 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.
The most popular ways of forming city names are listed below. So, most often they come from:
- proper names of any prominent personalities (for example, Washington, Khmelnitsky, Kirov, San Francisco);
- namesnearby rivers, often with the addition of the prefix -on- (Moscow, Lensk, Volgograd, Frankfurt am Main, Rostov-on-Don);
- geographical features of a particular territory (Pyatigorsk, Zelenograd, Krivoy Rog, Rivne);
- names of professions or crafts (Rybinsk, Nefteyugansk);
- from old city names, by specifying them (New York, Novomoskovsk, Verkhnedneprovsk).
City in the Russian space
What does a typical Russian city look like? And how does it differ from others?
Cities of Russia, concentrating about 73% of the total population of the country, occupy only 2% of its territory. Most often they are scattered across the vast flat expanses of the state and connected by highways or railways. The number of townspeople increased significantly in the era of industrialization, when former villagers actively moved 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 there are 1113 cities within the Russian Federation.
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 oftenimply a settlement that appeared on the maps in the second half of the twentieth century (after World War II). 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.
Urban area concept
Major cities can also be divided into smaller administrative units. This practice is common in the post-Soviet space.
Districts of the city 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 districts. Examples of such cities: Moscow, Barnaul, Vladivostok, Samara, St. Petersburg and others. In some of them, city districts were renamed into districts (for example, in Arkhangelsk, Kursk, Belgorod, Kaluga).
In conclusion…
A city is a relatively large settlement (primarily in terms of the number of inhabitants), with a developed industry, services, infrastructure and high-rise buildings. Cities can vary greatly in area, population, configuration, and also in the functions they are designed to perform.
There are 1113 cities in Russia. Among them there are both very ancient (for example, Bryansk, Onega, Suzdal), and completely young cities that were founded in the twentieth century (these are Novovoronezh, Kaspiysk, Sayansk and others).
