Village

In Afghanistan, the village, or deh (Dari/Pashto: ده)[3] is the mid-size settlement type in Afghan society, trumping the hamlet or qala (Dari: قلعه, Pashto: کلي),[4] though smaller than the town, or shār (Dari: شهر, Pashto: ښار).[5] In contrast to the qala, the deh is generally a bigger settlement which includes a commercial area, while the yet larger shār includes governmental buildings and services such as schools of higher education, basic health care, police stations etc.

Mollösund, an example of a common village in Sweden and the Nordics.

A typical rural peasant Indian village in Rajasthan, India

"The soul of India lives in its villages," declared Mahatma Gandhi[6] at the beginning of 20th century. According to the 2011 census of India, 69% of Indians (around 833 million people) live in 640,867 different villages.[7] The size of these villages varies considerably. 236,004 Indian villages have a population of fewer than 500, while 3,976 villages have a population of 10,000+. Most of the villages have their own temple, mosque, or church, depending on the local religious following.

The majority of Pakistanis live in rural areas. According to the 2017 census about 64% of Pakistanis live in rural areas. Most rural areas in Pakistan tend to be near cities, and are peri-urban areas, This is due to the definition of a rural area in Pakistan being an area that does not come within an urban boundary.[8] Village is called dehaat or gaaon in Urdu. Pakistani village life is marked by kinship and exchange relations.[9]

A village in Pakistani Kashmir's Neelum Valley "Dosut"

In Brunei, villages are officially the third- and lowest-level subdivisions of Brunei below districts and mukims.[12] A village is locally known by the Malay word kampung (also spelt as kampong).[12][13] They may be villages in the traditional or anthropological sense but may also comprise delineated residential settlements, both rural and urban. The community of a village is headed by a village head (Malay: ketua kampung). Communal infrastructure for the villagers may include a primary school, a religious school providing ugama or Islamic religious primary education which is compulsory for the Muslim pupils in the country,[14] a mosque, and a community centre (Malay: balai raya or dewan kemasyarakatan).

In Indonesia, depending on the principles they are administered, villages are called Kampung or Desa (officially kelurahan). A "Desa" (a term that derives from a Sanskrit word meaning "country" that is found in the name "Bangladesh"=bangla and desh/desha) is administered according to traditions and customary law (adat), while a kelurahan is administered along more "modern" principles. Desa are generally located in rural areas while kelurahan are generally urban subdivisions. A village head is respectively called kepala desa or lurah. Both are elected by the local community. A desa or kelurahan is the subdivision of a kecamatan (subdistrict), in turn the subdivision of a kabupaten (district) or kota (city).

The same general concept applies all over Indonesia. However, there is some variation among the vast numbers of Austronesian ethnic groups. For instance, in Bali villages have been created by grouping traditional hamlets or banjar, which constitute the basis of Balinese social life. In the Minangkabau area in West Sumatra province, traditional villages are called nagari (a term deriving from another Sanskrit word meaning "city", which can be found in the name like "Srinagar"=sri and nagar/nagari). In some areas such as Tanah Toraja, elders take turns watching over the village at a command post. As a general rule, desa and kelurahan are groupings of hamlets (kampung in Indonesian, dusun in the Javanese language, banjar in Bali). a kampung is defined today as a village in Brunei and Indonesia.

Kampung is a term used in Malaysia, (sometimes spelling kampong or kompong in the English language) for "a Malay hamlet or village in a Malay-speaking country".[15] In Malaysia, a kampung is determined as a locality with 10,000 or fewer people. Since historical times, every Malay village came under the leadership of a penghulu (village chief), who has the power to hear civil matters in his village (see Courts of Malaysia for more details).

A Malay village typically contains a "masjid" (mosque) or "surau", paddy fields and Malay houses on stilts. Malay and Indonesian villagers practice the culture of helping one another as a community, which is better known as "joint bearing of burdens" (gotong royong).[16] They are family-oriented (especially the concept of respecting one's family [particularly the parents and elders]), courtesy and practice belief in God ("Tuhan") as paramount to everything else. It is common to see a cemetery near the mosque. All Muslims in the Malay or Indonesian village want to be prayed for, and to receive Allah's blessings in the afterlife. In Sarawak and East Kalimantan, some villages are called 'long', primarily inhabited by the Orang Ulu.

Malaysian kampung were once aplenty in Singapore but there are almost no remaining kampung villages; the very few to have survived until today are mostly on outlying islands surrounding mainland Singapore, such as Pulau Ubin. Mainland Singapore used to have many kampung villages but modern developments and rapid urbanisation works have seen them bulldozed away; Kampong Lorong Buangkok is the last surviving village on the country's mainland.

The term "kampung", sometimes spelled "kampong", is one of many Malay words to have entered common usage in Malaysia and Singapore. Locally, the term is frequently used to refer to either one's hometown or a rural village, depending on the intended context.

In urban areas of the Philippines, the term "village" most commonly refers to private subdivisions, especially gated communities. These villages emerged in the mid-20th century and were initially the domain of elite urban dwellers. Those are common in major cities in the country and their residents have a wide range of income levels.

Such villages may or may not correspond to a barangay (the country's basic unit of government, also glossed as village), or be privately administered. Barangays correspond more to precolonial villages; the chairman (formerly the village datu) now settles administrative, intrapersonal, and political matters or polices the area though with much less authority and respect than in Indonesia or Malaysia.

Village, or "làng", is a basis of Vietnam society. Vietnam's village is the typical symbol of Asian agricultural production. Vietnam's village typically contains: a village gate, "lũy tre" (bamboo hedges), "đình làng" (communal house) where "thành hoàng" (tutelary god) is worshiped, a common well, "đồng lúa" (rice field), "chùa" (temple) and houses of all families in the village. All the people in Vietnam's villages usually have a blood relationship. They are farmers who grow rice and have the same traditional handicraft. Vietnam's villages have an important role in society (Vietnamese saying: "Custom rules the law" -"Phép vua thua lệ làng" [literally: the king's law yields to village customs]). It is common for Vietnamese villagers to prefer to be buried in their village upon death.

Lug, village in northern Serbia

Selo (Cyrillic: село; Polish: sioło) is a Slavic word meaning "village" in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, North Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine. For example, there are numerous sela (plural of selo) called Novo Selo (New Village) in Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, and North Macedonia.

Another Slavic word for a village is ves (Polish: wieś, wioska; Czech: ves, vesnice; Slovak: ves; Slovene: vas; Russian: весь, romanized: ves). In Slovenia, the word selo is used for very small villages (fewer than 100 people) and in dialects; the Slovene word vas is used all over Slovenia. In Russia, the word ves is archaic, but remains in idioms and locality names, such as Vesyegonsk.

Thirdly dedina (in some dialects also dzedzina) is Slovak most used word for a village. It could be relative to a Sanskrit like Afgan word deh and Indonesian word desa.

Fourthly valal (also valala) is word for a village in Eastern Slovak dialects. It could be relative to a mythical word Valhala.

Kovachevitsa, a village in southern Bulgaria

In Bulgaria, the different types of sela vary from a small selo of 5 to 30 families to one of several thousand people. According to a 2002 census, in that year there were 2,385,000 Bulgarian citizens living in settlements classified as villages.[17] A 2004 Human Settlement Profile on Bulgaria[18] conducted by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs stated that:

The most intensive is the migration "city – city". Approximately 46% of all migrated people have changed their residence from one city to another. The share of the migration processes "village – city" is significantly less – 23% and "city – village" – 20%. The migration "village – village" in 2002 is 11%.[17]

It also stated that

the state of the environment in the small towns and villages is good apart from the low level of infrastructure.[17]

In Bulgaria, it is popular to visit villages for the atmosphere, culture, crafts, hospitality of the people and the surrounding nature. This is called selski turizam (Bulgarian: селски туризъм), meaning "village tourism".[19]

The village of Kichkalnya, Tatarstan

In Russia, as of the 2010 Census, 26.3% of the country's population lives in rural localities;[20] down from 26.7% recorded in the 2002 Census.[20] Multiple types of rural localities exist, but the two most common are derevnya (деревня) and selo (село). Historically, the formal indication of status was religious: a city (gorod, город) had a cathedral, a selo had a church, while a derevnya had neither.

The lowest administrative unit of the Russian Empire, a volost, or its Soviet or modern Russian successor, a selsoviet, was typically headquartered in a selo and embraced a few neighboring villages.

In the 1960s–1970s, the depopulation of the smaller villages was driven by the central planners' drive in order to get the farm workers out of smaller, "prospectless" hamlets and into the collective or state farms' main villages or even larger towns and cities, with more amenities.[21]

Most Russian rural residents are involved in agricultural work, and it is very common for villagers to produce their own food. As prosperous urbanites purchase village houses for their second homes, Russian villages sometimes are transformed into dacha settlements, used mostly for seasonal residence.

The historically Cossack regions of Southern Russia and parts of Ukraine, with their fertile soil and absence of serfdom, had a rather different pattern of settlement from central and northern Russia. While peasants of central Russia lived in a village around the lord's manor, a Cossack family often lived on its own farm, called khutor. A number of such khutors plus a central village made up the administrative unit with a center in a stanitsa (Russian: станица, romanized: stanitsa; Ukrainian: станиця, romanized: stanytsya, lit. 'stanytsia'). Such stanitsas, often with a few thousand residents, were usually larger than a typical selo in central Russia.

Mayaky Village, Donetsk, Ukraine

In Ukraine, a village, (Ukrainian: село), pronounced locally as selo (IPA: [selo]), is considered the lowest administrative unit. Villages are under the jurisdiction of a hromada administration.

There is, however, another smaller type of settlement which is designated in Ukrainian as a selyshche (селище). This type of community is generally referred to in English as a "settlement". In comparison with an urban-type settlement, Ukrainian legislation does not have a concrete definition or a criterion to differentiate such settlements from villages. They represent a type of a small rural locality that might have once been a khutir, a fisherman's settlement, or a dacha. Sometimes, the term "selyshche" is also used in a more general way to refer to adjacent settlements near a bigger city including urban-type settlements (selyshche miskoho typu) or villages. However, ambiguity is often avoided in connection with urbanized settlements by referring to them using the three-letter abbreviation smt instead.

The khutir (хутір) and stanytsia (станиця) are not part of the administrative division any longer, primarily due to collectivization. Khutirs were very small rural localities consisting of just few housing units and were sort of individual farms. They became really popular during the Stolypin reform in the early 20th century. During the collectivization, however, residents of such settlements were usually declared to be kulaks and had all their property confiscated and distributed to others (nationalized) without any compensation. The stanitsa likewise has not survived as an administrative term. The stanitsa was a type of a collective community that could include one or more settlements such as villages, khutirs, and others. Today, stanitsa-type formations have only survived in Kuban (Russian Federation) where Ukrainians were resettled during the time of the Russian Empire.

Saint-Cirq-Lapopie in Lot is one of "The Most Beautiful Villages in France".

The Insee classifies French communes into four groups according to population density:[22]

1. Communes with high population density
2. Communes with intermediate population density
3. Communes with low population density
4. Communes with very low population density

A commune in Group 3 or 4 is considered as a village (commune rurale).[23]

An independent association named Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, was created in 1982 to promote assets of small and picturesque French villages of quality heritage. As of March 2021, 159 villages in France have been listed in "The Most Beautiful Villages of France".

In Germany a Dorf (village) usually consists of at least a few houses but can have up to a few thousand inhabitants. Larger villages can also be referred to as a Flecken or Markt depending on the region. Smaller villages usually do not have their own government. Instead, they are part (Ortsteil) of the municipality of a nearby town.

The village of Collina, part of the Forni Avoltri municipality, in Friuli, Italy

In Italy, villages are spread throughout the country. No legal definition of village exists in Italian law; nonetheless, a settlement inhabited by less than 2000 people is usually described as "village". More often, Italian villages that are a part of a municipality are called frazione, whereas the village that hosts the municipal seat is called paese (town) or capoluogo.

In Spain, a village (pueblo) refers to a small population unit, smaller than a town (villa [an archaic term that survives only in official uses, such as the official name of Spain's capital, "la Villa de Madrid"]) and a city (ciudad), typically located in a rural environment. While commonly it is the smallest administrative unit (municipio), it is possible for a village to be legally composed of smaller population units in its territory. There is not a clear-cut distinction between villages, towns and cities in Spain, since they had been traditionally categorized according to their religious importance and their relationship with surrounding population units.

Villages are more usual in the northern and central regions, Azores Islands and in the Alentejo. Most of them have a church and a "Casa do Povo" (people's house), where the village's summer romarias or religious festivities are usually held. Summer is also when many villages are host to a range of folk festivals and fairs, taking advantage of the fact that many of the locals who reside abroad tend to come back to their native village for the holidays.

In the flood-prone districts of the Netherlands, particularly in the northern provinces of Friesland and Groningen, villages were traditionally built on low man-made hills called terpen before the introduction of regional dyke-systems. In modern days, the term dorp (lit. "village") is usually applied to settlements no larger than 20,000, though there's no official law regarding status of settlements in the Netherlands.

A village in the UK is a compact settlement of houses, smaller in size than a town, and generally based on agriculture or, in some areas, mining (such as Ouston, County Durham), quarrying or sea fishing. They are very similar to those in Ireland.

The main street of the village of Castle Combe, Wiltshire, England

The major factors in the type of settlement are: location of water sources, organisation of agriculture and landholding, and likelihood of flooding. For example, in areas such as the Lincolnshire Wolds, the villages are often found along the spring line halfway down the hillsides, and originate as spring line settlements, with the original open field systems around the village. In northern Scotland, most villages are planned to a grid pattern located on or close to major roads, whereas in areas such as the Forest of Arden, woodland clearances produced small hamlets around village greens.[24][25] Because of the topography of the Clent Hills the north Worcestershire village of Clent is an example of a village with no centre but instead consists of series of hamlets scattered on and around the Hills.

Kilmaurs in East Ayrshire, Scotland

Some villages have disappeared (for example, deserted medieval villages), sometimes leaving behind a church or manor house and sometimes nothing but bumps in the fields. Some show archaeological evidence of settlement at three or four different layers, each distinct from the previous one. Clearances may have been to accommodate sheep or game estates, or enclosure, or may have resulted from depopulation, such as after the Black Death or following a move of the inhabitants to more prosperous districts. Other villages have grown and merged and often form hubs within the general mass of suburbia—such as Hampstead, London and Didsbury in Manchester. Many villages are now predominantly dormitory locations and have suffered the loss of shops, churches and other facilities.

For many British people, the village represents an ideal of Great Britain. Seen as being far from the bustle of modern life, it is represented as quiet and harmonious, if a little inward-looking. This concept of an unspoilt Arcadia is present in many popular representations of the village such as the radio serial The Archers or the best kept village competitions.[26]

Bisley, Gloucestershire, a village in the Cotswolds

Many villages in South Yorkshire, North Nottinghamshire, North East Derbyshire, County Durham, South Wales and Northumberland are known as pit villages. These (such as Murton, County Durham) grew from hamlets when the sinking of a colliery in the early 20th century resulted in a rapid growth in their population and the colliery owners built new housing, shops, pubs and churches. Some pit villages outgrew nearby towns by area and population; for example, Rossington in South Yorkshire came to have over four times more people than the nearby town of Bawtry. Some pit villages grew to become towns; for example, Maltby in South Yorkshire grew from 600 people in the 19th century[27] to over 17,000 in 2007.[28] Maltby was constructed under the auspices of the Sheepbridge Coal and Iron Company and included ample open spaces and provision for gardens.[29]

In the UK, the main historical distinction between a hamlet and a village was that the latter had a church,[1] and so usually was the centre of worship for an ecclesiastical parish. However, some civil parishes may contain more than one village. The typical village had a pub or inn, shops, and a blacksmith. But many of these facilities are now gone, and many villages are dormitories for commuters. The population of such settlements ranges from a few hundred people to around five thousand. A village is distinguished from a town in that:

• A village should not have a regular agricultural market, although today such markets are uncommon even in settlements which clearly are towns.
• A village does not have a town hall nor a mayor.
• If a village is the principal settlement of a civil parish, then any administrative body that administers it at parish level should be called a parish council or parish meeting, and not a town council or city council. However, some civil parishes have no functioning parish, town, or city council nor a functioning parish meeting. In Wales, where the equivalent of an English civil parish is called a Community, the body that administers it is called a Community Council. However, larger councils may elect to call themselves town councils.[30] In Scotland, the equivalent is also a community council, however, despite being statutory bodies they have no executive powers.[31]
• There should be a clear green belt or open fields, as, for example, seen on aerial maps for Ouston surrounding its parish[32] borders. However this may not be applicable to urbanised villages: although these may not be considered to be villages, they are often widely referred to as being so; an example of this is Horsforth in Leeds.

Like France, villages in Lebanon are usually located in remote mountainous areas. The majority of villages in Lebanon retain their Aramaic names or are derivative of the Aramaic names, and this is because Aramaic was still in use in Mount Lebanon up to the 18th century.[33]

Many of the Lebanese villages are a part of districts, these districts are known as "kadaa" which includes the districts of Baabda (Baabda), Aley (Aley), Matn (Jdeideh), Keserwan (Jounieh), Chouf (Beiteddine), Jbeil (Byblos), Tripoli (Tripoli), Zgharta (Zgharta / Ehden), Bsharri (Bsharri), Batroun (Batroun), Koura (Amioun), Miniyeh-Danniyeh (Minyeh / Sir Ed-Danniyeh), Zahle (Zahle), Rashaya (Rashaya), Western Beqaa (Jebjennine / Saghbine), Sidon (Sidon), Jezzine (Jezzine), Tyre (Tyre), Nabatiyeh (Nabatiyeh), Marjeyoun (Marjeyoun), Hasbaya (Hasbaya), Bint Jbeil (Bint Jbeil), Baalbek (Baalbek), and Hermel (Hermel).

The district of Danniyeh consists of thirty-six small villages, which includes Almrah, Kfirchlan, Kfirhbab, Hakel al Azimah, Siir, Bakhoun, Miryata, Assoun, Sfiiri, Kharnoub, Katteen, Kfirhabou, Zghartegrein, Ein Qibil.

Danniyeh (known also as Addinniyeh, Al Dinniyeh, Al Danniyeh, Arabic: سير الضنية) is a region located in Miniyeh-Danniyeh District in the North Governorate of Lebanon. The region lies east of Tripoli, extends north as far as Akkar District, south to Bsharri District and Zgharta District and as far east as Baalbek and Hermel. Dinniyeh has an excellent ecological environment filled with woodlands, orchards and groves. Several villages are located in this mountainous area, the largest town being Sir Al Dinniyeh.

An example of a typical mountainous Lebanese village in Dannieh would be Hakel al Azimah which is a small village that belongs to the district of Danniyeh, situated between Bakhoun and Assoun's boundaries. It is in the centre of the valleys that lie between the Arbeen Mountains and the Khanzouh.

Syria contains a large number of villages that vary in size and importance, including the ancient, historical and religious villages, such as Ma'loula, Sednaya, and Brad (Mar Maroun's time). The diversity of the Syrian environments creates significant differences between the Syrian villages in terms of the economic activity and the method of adoption. Villages in the south of Syria (Hauran, Jabal al-Druze), the north-east (the Syrian island) and the Orontes River basin depend mostly on agriculture, mainly grain, vegetables, and fruits. Villages in the region of Damascus and Aleppo depend on trading. Some other villages, such as Marmarita depend heavily on tourist activity.

Mediterranean cities in Syria, such as Tartus and Latakia have similar types of villages. Mainly, villages were built in very good sites which had the fundamentals of the rural life, like water. An example of a Mediterranean Syrian village in Tartus would be al-Annazah, which is a small village that belongs to the area of al-Sauda. The area of al-Sauda is called a nahiya.

In twenty U.S. states, the term "village" refers to a specific form of incorporated municipal government, similar to a city but with less authority and geographic scope. However, this is a generality; in many states, there are villages that are an order of magnitude larger than the smallest cities in the state. The distinction is not necessarily based on population, but on the relative powers granted to the different types of municipalities and correspondingly, different obligations to provide specific services to residents.

In some states such as New York and Michigan, a village is an incorporated municipality, within a single town or civil township. In some cases, the village may be coterminous with the town or township, in which case the two may have a consolidated government. There are also villages that span the boundaries of more than one town or township; some villages may straddle county borders.

There is no population limit to villages in New York. Hempstead, the largest village, has 55,000 residents; making it more populous than some of the state's cities. However; villages in the state may not exceed five square miles (13 km²) in area. Michigan and Illinois also have no set population limit for villages and there are many villages that are larger than cities in those states. The village of Schaumburg, Illinois had 78,723 residents as of the 2020 census. A village also has no written figure against how small a population can be, with the United States' smallest incorporated village being Dering Harbor, NY, with a population of just over 10.

In Michigan, a village is always legally part of a township. Villages can incorporate land in multiple townships and even multiple counties. The largest village in the state is Beverly Hills in Southfield Township which had a population of 10,267 people as of the 2010 census.

In the state of Wisconsin, a village is always legally separate from the towns that it has been incorporated from. The largest village is Menomonee Falls, which has over 32,000 residents. In Pennsylvania law, the term borough is used to refer to the same type of entity. 80% of Pennsylvania's 956 boroughs have populations of less than 5,000 but about thirty have populations of over 10,000 with State College having more than 40,000 residents.

In Ohio villages are often legally part of the township from which they were incorporated, although exceptions such as Hiram exist, in which the village is separate from the township.[34] They have no area limitations, but become cities if they grow a population of more than 5,000.[35]

In Maryland, a locality designated "Village of ..." may be either an incorporated town or a special tax district.[36] An example of the latter is the Village of Friendship Heights.

In North Carolina, the only difference between cities, towns, and villages is the term itself.[37]

Oracle, Arizona is an unincorporated rural town often called a village in local media

In many states, the term "village" is used to refer to a relatively small unincorporated community, similar to a hamlet in New York state. This informal usage may be found even in states that have villages as an incorporated municipality, although such usage might be considered incorrect and confusing.

In most New England states, a "village" is a center of population or trade, including the town center, in an otherwise sparsely developed town or city — for instance, the village of Hyannis in the town of Barnstable, Massachusetts. However, in Vermont and Connecticut, both incorporated and unincorporated villages exist.

A village in Kaita, Nigeria

Villages in Nigeria vary significantly because of cultural and geographical differences.

Northern Nigeria

In the North, villages were under traditional rulers long before the Jihad of Shaikh Uthman Bin Fodio and after the Holy War. At that time Traditional rulers used to have absolute power in their administrative regions. After Dan Fodio's Jihad in 1804,[38] political structure of the North became Islamic where emirs were the political, administrative and spiritual leaders of their people. These emirs appointed a number of people to assist them in running the administration and that included villages.[39]

Every Hausa village was reigned by Magaji (Village head) who was answerable to his Hakimi (mayor) at the town level. The Magaji also had his cabinet who assisted him in ruling his village efficiently, among whom was Mai-Unguwa (Ward Head).[40]

With the creation of Native Authority in Nigerian provinces, the autocratic power of village heads along with all other traditional rulers was subdued hence they ruled 'under the guidance of colonial officials'.[41]

Even though the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has not recognised the functions of traditional rulers, they still command respect in their villages[41] and political office holders liaise with them almost every time to reach people.

In Hausa language, village is called ƙauye and every local government area is made up of several small and large ƙauyuka (villages). For instance, Girka is a village in Kaita town in Katsina state in Nigeria. They have mud houses with thatched roofing though, like in most of the villages in the North, zinc roofing has become a common sight.

Still in many villages in the North, people do not have access to portable water.[42] So they fetch water from ponds and streams. Others are lucky to have wells within a walking distance. Women rush in the morning to fetch water in their clay pots from wells, boreholes and streams. However, the government is now providing them with water bore holes.[43]

Electricity and GSM network are reaching more and more villages in the North almost every day. So bad feeder roads may lead to remote villages with electricity and unstable GSM network.[44]

Southern Nigeria

Village dwellers in the Southeastern region lived separately in "clusters of huts belonging to the patrilinage".[45] As the rainforest region is dominated by Igbo speaking people, the villages are called ime obodo (inside town) in Igbo language. A typical large village might have a few thousand persons who shared the same market, meeting place and beliefs.

In South Africa the majority of people in rural areas reside in villages. They vary in size from having a population of less than 500 to around 1000.