Portal:Cities

The Cities Portal

The city of Erbil in Kurdistan has a radial urban structure centred on an ancient fortress.

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...)

Aerial view of Stanley, Falkland Islands

Stanley (also known as Port Stanley) is the capital city of the Falkland Islands. It is located on the island of East Falkland, on a north-facing slope in one of the wettest parts of the islands. At the 2016 census, the city had a population of 2,460. The entire population of the Falkland Islands was 3,398 on Census Day on 9 October 2016.

Stanley is represented by five of the eight elected members of the Legislative Assembly of the Falkland Islands, Stacy Bragger, Barry Elsby, Mark Pollard, Roger Spink and Leona Vidal Roberts. An elected Town Council of Stanley existed from 1948 to 1973. (Full article...)
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London (/ˈlʌndən/ LUN-dən) is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of around 8.8 million. The wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 14.9 million. London stands on the River Thames in southeast England, at the head of a 50-mile (80 km) estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for nearly 2,000 years. Its ancient core and financial centre, the City of London, was founded by the Romans as Londinium and has retained its medieval boundaries. The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has been the centuries-long host of the national government and parliament. London grew rapidly in the 19th century, becoming the world's largest city at the time as it expanded and absorbed the surrounding county of Middlesex alongside parts of Surrey and Kent. In 1965, it was combined with parts of Essex and Hertfordshire to create the administrative area of Greater London, which is governed by 33 local authorities and the Greater London Authority.

As one of the world's major global cities, London exerts a strong influence on world art, entertainment, fashion, commerce, finance, education, healthcare, media, science, technology, tourism, transport, and communications. Despite a post-Brexit exodus of stock listings from the London Stock Exchange, London remains Europe's most economically powerful city and one of the world's major financial centres. It hosts Europe's largest concentration of higher education institutions, some of which are the highest-ranked academic institutions in the world: Imperial College London in natural and applied sciences, the London School of Economics in social sciences, and the comprehensive University College London. It is the most visited city in Europe and has the world's busiest city airport system. The London Underground is the world's oldest rapid transit system. (Full article...)
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Central entry checkpoint to the closed city of Seversk, Tomsk Oblast, Russia.

A closed city or town is a settlement where travel or residency restrictions are applied so that specific authorization is required to visit or remain overnight. Such places may be sensitive military establishments or secret research installations that require much more space or internal freedom than is available in a conventional military base. There may also be a wider variety of permanent residents, including close family members of workers or trusted traders who are not directly connected with clandestine purposes.

Many closed cities existed in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, a number of them continue to exist in the post-Soviet states, especially in Russia. In modern Russia, such places are officially known as "closed administrative-territorial formations" (Russian: закрытые административно-территориальные образования (ЗАТО), romanizedzakrytye administrativno-territorial'nye obrazovaniya (ZATO)). (Full article...)
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