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What is the difference between a hamlet, village and a town?

Question #44470. Asked by supermary345.

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MaggieG
Answer has 40 votes
Currently Best Answer
MaggieG avatar

Answer has 40 votes.

Currently voted the best answer.
It's best to use dictionary definitions in questions like these. According to the OED, a hamlet is a group of houses, or small village in the country, especially a village without a church.
A village is a collection of dwelling houses, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town. And a town is an assemblage of buildings, public and private, larger than a village and having more complete and independent local government. So there you have it.
Hamlet - small, beautifully formed, but Godless
Village, bigger with a little organisation and a church or two
Town - bigger again and organised and administered.
Size, it seems, does matter...

Feb 19 2004, 5:46 PM
sequoianoir
Answer has 16 votes
sequoianoir
21 year member
2091 replies

Answer has 16 votes.
I found a site yesterday (something to do with local government administration areas), whilst researching the "smallest hamlet" question, which appeared to suggest (for hamlets in the US) that the smallest hamlet had 16 dwellings as the minimum.
Less than 16 and it was just a cluster of houses.

Feb 19 2004, 6:07 PM
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