cadman

Just wondered what the criteria is for calling a place a city in Australia? They seem to have them all over, even cities within the outer suburbs of cities!

I believe that over here you traditionally have to have a cathedral to be called a city don't you?

I don't care, just bored at work and wondered?

Andy.
Cadman

Pollyana

No, the cathedral thing doesn't apply here. I find it really confusing - places that are big enough to be large towns, are referred to as suburbs - and in fact if you search realestate.com it even refers to places like Cairns and Townsville as suburbs!

pomcol

Not certain but i think the criteria to be called a city is the amount of people that live in that particular place. I maybe wrong but i am sure that is how it works.[HOW MANY I DONT KNOW? }

cadman

Always used to be that you had to have a cathedral before you were granted city status in the UK. Not sure if it's changed now.

Pollyana

There are some cities in the UK now, which have some sort of honorary title, can't remember what it is I'm afraid - places like Brighton, which are major centres but don't have cathedrals.

worzel

The cathedral thing is a common misconception but it is all down to being given Royal permission. (of course Queenie just rubber stamps what Tony says). They seem to give towns the rights to call themselves cities away with cornflakes these days. I think they did a few for the Millenium. The BBC will probably do a series along the lines of Restoration for viewers to vote on a new city soon. (All said as somebody who comes from a "proper" city with a cathedral )

Pollyana

Yep, of course in the "olden days" Royal permission was only granted if they had the cathedral or abbey - hence such places as St Davids (lovely spot) being a city, when they are only village-sized. my dad (a vicar) used to take us round the cathedrals, and we always found it strnage that some huge places didn;t have one, yet smaller places did - and thus were called cities.

I freely admit that though I lived in Brighton for 21 years, and was there when its status changed, I can never call it a city - I guess I'm just a traditionalist.

Ushas

I think 'City' is more of a political/council thing in Oz than a 'Status' thing.

For example in Perth You have The CBD which is generally considered 'the city'.

But for council purposes there is 'city of' such as City of Stirling, City of Canning, City of Joondalup, City of Perth, City of Fremantle etc...In country areas however, these 'city of...' council thingies are called shires.

I am not sure however, what the criteria is for deciding city boundaries or shire boundaries.

Suburbs are parts of these various council city jurisdictions.

kirsty&al

Hello,

I found a list of cities in the UK. Note that Brighton and Hove are joined together to make a single city (bizarre!). The link also gives places with Cathedrals that are not a city (e.g. Southwark in London). It appears that St David's didn't officially become a city until 1994, although I remember it being called a city when I was a kid, and the small village hall does have "City Hall" inscribed on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...List_of_cities

The cities within a city phenomenon (which I think is cities within a metropolitan district) is a bit like the London Boroughs thing (i.e. the City of Yarra is a borough of the Melbourne Metropolitan Area). Note that the City of London and City of Westminster are both within the London Metropolitan Area.

Cheers
Alistair

kirsty&al

It appears that the criteria for an Oz city are:

A City must be situated in the metropolitan area and have a population of more than 30,000 with more than half living in an urban area.

They also have to apply for the status.

I would guess that there are more cities in Oz than there are in the UK.

Cheers
Alistair

DagBoy

Or possibly a famous university? I grew up near the city of Cambridge