How do we differentiate the size of communities in the US?

How many stop lights? How many uninhabited acres? How many shopping malls? How often do you have to stop to wait for the freight train to pass through?

Are three Suvs, a truck loaded with logs and two Canada geese considered a traffic jam?

How many students in the regional high school belong to 4 H?

How easy is it to buy feed for horses, rabbits, goats and llamas?

How many dairy farms are there within a 10 mile radius of your home?

Does almost everyone have at least 3 acres of land?

How many people per square mile in your county? (99.4 in mine).

Low population density, mostly residences, few, if any stores (and if there are, they’re little local ones like a coffee shop or a feed supply), horses and other farm animals on big plots of land, farms, woods, streams, lakes, roads are called RR or “rural route.”

It isn’t only about size. If there are townships dotted in the area, each closely attainable to others, then it is not a rural setting. A town of 40K or 50 K with nothing but farmland, and gas pumped from giant barrels, and kids driving tractors, or a team of horses down the road, it is a rural township. Personally, I also factor in what is the main industry of the location. Is it coal mining, produce, redneck comedians? Then you might be a rural community.

I agree it depends on how spread out the population is in the town or city.

@Here2_4 I never hear the term township used outside of Michigan. Some other states might use the term, I just am not aware of it. What state are you in? There are other states that use the term in a more technical way referring to the survey of the land, but the general population doesn’t commonly use it.

It’s the word “communities” in this question that trips one up. If you substitute the word “towns” for “communities”, the straightforward answer must be based on the physical area or square mileage of the places being compared. So size means area—plain and simple. It’s when you start defining “community” that “size” gets slippery, because the word “community” can mean either the town or the collection of people populating the town. When you ask the question “How do we differentiate the size of a group?”, the sensible answer must be in numbers or “by population.”

My little neighborhood is called a hamlet…smaller than a village, it seems.

Yeah, @gailcalled, there are all kinds of hamlets around. I love the word “hamlet.”

The hamlet is in a town of about 1700 people and an area of 49 sq. miles, with 57 miles of dirt roads. Most of our property tax money goes to the highway dept…Bobby Mehan and his brother-in-law in their pick-up truck and front loader.

@gailcalled: Don’t forget the Meats Farm.

I live between two communities in Illinois. One is 3 miles north of us with a population of 461 and the other is 3 miles south of us with a population of 3,200. Google lists the smaller town as a village and the larger town as a city. There are no businesses in the smaller town. The larger town has many businesses. It has several fast food restaurants, 3 gas stations, 4 banks, a clothing store, a furniture store, several factories, 3 locally owned restaurants, an Ace Hardware, 3 automotive shops and 3 public schools. Ooops, I can’t forget the flower shop, dentist, general practitioner, veterinarian and butcher.

Our entire county has a population of 32,600 with the largest town having a population of 19,000. The population density is 56 people per square mile. I consider every town in our county as rural, with the exception of our largest town which is considered a college town.

We travel at least 60 miles to visit a city.

@jonsblond the designation of “village” or “city” would probably have more to do with the municipal charter, rather than size of the community. There are many “villages” in Illinois, especially in the suburban Chicago area (a.k.a “Chicagoland”} that once might have been small rural communities, but through urbanization might have populations in the tens or or maybe even hundreds of thousands.

You’re not really asking how we “differentiate” between these kinds of settlements, because you’ve already done that: “one is bigger than the other”. That’s differentiation (at least one kind of it). What you’re asking about is “classification” or “categorization”.

In other words, what kind of category of “human settlements” is a town of 20,000 people? a town of 40,000? How is that settlement classified against other settlements?

As some have mentioned, it has a lot to do with population density. In some farming towns, 20,000 people may be spread out over 50 square miles or more. The center of town might be classed as “a village”. In the Bronx, that could be a large apartment complex.

Can you open your back door and shoot a shotgun without bothering anyone? Old question

What’s a safe distance forthe average trajectory? If I was careful about my direction (and knew how to operate a shotgun) I probably could.

Do you ever see people go by on quads, horses or cross country skis?

Horses, yes. i also often see steaming piles of manure on the road. (What’s a quad?) I see people on x-country skis in near-by areas that are more open fields rather than woodsy.

@jonsblond: The density in my town is 35 people per sq. mile. There are more cows than that.

I believe, if I’m not mistaken, that there are more cows in @gailcalled‘s county then there are people in her town.

You will often see a horse and buggy at our local Walmart parking lot.

I say it’s density that matters. Guttenberg, NJ has 11K people, but it’s four blocks wide (source).

We used Hamlet and Village in NYS. In MD we used Village too, but it was different to me, it was the name of the town and I don’t remember anything else designated a village in MD.

They still say “township” a lot in my part of Illinois.

Yes, I can still shoot a shotgun out my back door without bothering anyone, @LuckyGuy.

Around here horse and buggy are generally associated with Amish, and there are few near.

I’m too late to the party to try to respond to everyone, but thanks all! I lurved you.

@ibstubro Illinois has 18 Amish settlements with an estimated total population of 7,000. I didn’t realize their population in central and western IL was this large. (I just researched the info)

They really like Walmart. I always see Amish shopping when I’m there. I was just admiring their handmade clothes Wednesday when two women were walking in front of me. :)

Iowa has a large population, too, @jonsblond. There have never been many in the area where I live.

I always had a ‘quaint’ picture of them until we had a rural auction with a number in attendance. This bunch stunk, literally. I mentioned it on-line one time, and a friend of mine that lived amongst them had a rant. She claimed that they don’t bath because sweat is stink, meaning hardworking, meaning in God’s favor. She claimed they were forever bumming rides and constantly asking to use the phone. Quite an unflattering picture. Seems that at least part of them are allowed to use modern conveniences, but not own them.

I went to Costco in Lancaster County PA (where there is a huge Amish population)(those of you who know me know I love Costco and try to visit local ones when I’m traveling) and in the parking lot they have a sign “Horse and buggy parking.”

There are huge hay bales in the fields; I counted 8 different locations today on my way to town.

It can become an art form.

For some reason I always want to think of those round bales as monster rabbit pellets, @gailcalled.