Afghanistan In
Afghanistan, the word "hamlet" may be used to translate the term "
qala" (
Dari: قلعه,
Pashto: کلي). The Afghan
qala is a fortified group of houses, generally with a community building such as a mosque but without a marketplace. The qala is the smallest type of settlement in Afghan society, outsized by the village (
Dari/
Pashto: ده), which is larger and includes a commercial area.
Canada In Canada's three
territories, hamlets are officially designated
municipalities. •
Northwest Territories had
11 hamlets, •
Nunavut had
24 hamlets, and •
Yukon had
two hamlets, In Canada's provinces, hamlets are usually small
unincorporated communities within a larger municipality (similar to
civil townships in the United States), such as many communities within the
single-tier municipalities of
Ontario,
Alberta's
specialized and
rural municipalities, and
Saskatchewan's rural municipalities. Canada's two largest hamlets—
Fort McMurray (formerly incorporated as a city) and
Sherwood Park—are located in Alberta. They each have populations, within their main urban area, over 60,000—well over the 10,000-person threshold that can choose to
incorporate as a city in Alberta. As such, these two hamlets have been further designated by the Province of Alberta as
urban service areas. An urban service area is recognized as equivalent to a city for provincial and federal program delivery and grant eligibility.
France A hamlet () is a group of rural dwellings, usually too small to be considered a village. The term is also applied to hamlets but it can also refer to uninhabited localities. During the 18th century, it was fashionable for rich or noble people to create
their hameau in their gardens. This was a group of houses or farms with a rustic appearance but very comfortable. The best known are the
Hameau de la Reine, built by Queen
Marie-Antoinette in the park of the
Palace of Versailles, and the
Hameau de Chantilly, built by
Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé in
Chantilly, Oise.
Germany The word "hamlet" may be used to translate the term ''
(). Compared to a Dorf
(village), a has no infrastructure (i.e. no inn, no school, no store, no church). The houses and farms of a Weiler
can be grouped (in the hills and the mountains) or scattered (more often in the plains). In North West Germany, a group of scattered farms is called Bauerschaft''. In a Weiler, there are no street names, the houses are just numbered. There is no legal definition of a Weiler in Germany. In Bavaria, like in Austria, a Weiler is defined as a settlement with 3 to 9 dwellings, from 10 houses it is called a village.
Italy In
Italy, the term ‘frazione’ refers to a portion of inhabited territory within a municipality (the lowest level of subdivision, the "
Comune"), generally located some distance from the centre of the town or village but still within the municipality's territory. In practice, if a village or town can be divided into neighbourhoods, i.e. portions of the same inhabited centre, the hamlets are located at a certain distance, creating a detached urban group. In many cases, some hamlets may have once been municipalities. Hamlets are always indicated by a sign, but they have no administrative function (at most, they may be polling stations). Small groups of houses that do not form a town and are further detached are called "località" (localites). We mention two examples in the
Liguria Region: the coastal municipality of
Camogli consists of the town centre and the hamlets of Ruta (a former Napoleonic municipality) and San Rocco. In turn, there are localities such as Boschetto, Case Rosse, Mortola, Porto Pidocchio and San Fruttuoso di Capodimonte, which are well separated but fall within the three main localities for all aspects of daily life. The municipality of
Lumarzo, on the other hand, is known as a “scattered municipality” because it is made up of numerous separate centres without a main one, such as Lagomarsino, Pannesi, Boasi and Tasso, with numerous localities. For example, there are Tassorello, Tasso Alto, Sotto Tasso...
India In different states of
India, there are different words for hamlet. In
Haryana and
Rajasthan, it is called
"dhani" ( ''
) or "Thok"
. In Gujarat, a hamlet is called a "nesada"
, which are more prevalent in the Gir forest. In Maharashtra, it is called a "pada"
. In southern Bihar, especially in the Magadh division, a hamlet is called a "bigha"''. In the state of
Karnataka, a hamlet is known by different names like
Palya,
Hadi (Haadi),
Keri, and
Padi (Paadi). In the olden days, the human population of hamlet was less than
Halli (Village) or
Ooru (Uru). But in the 20th century with the tremendous increase in population, some of these hamlets became villages, towns and cities or merged with them.
Indonesia in
West Java Province, Indonesia All over
Indonesia, hamlets are translated as "small village", or '
. They are known as ' in Central Java and East Java, '
in Bali, ' or '''' in
West Sumatra.
Netherlands The Dutch words for hamlet are '
or '. A
gehucht or
buurtschap has, compared to a
dorp (Town), no infrastructure (i.e. no inn, no school, no store) and contains often only one street, bearing the same name. The houses and farms of a
gehucht or a
buurtschap can be scattered. Though there are strong similarities between a
gehucht and
buurtschap, the words are not interchangeable. A
gehucht officially counts as an independent place of residence (e.g.
Wateren), while a
buurtschap officially is a part of another place (e.g.
Bartlehiem, part of
Wyns).
Pakistan In Pakistan, a hamlet is called a
gaaon گاؤں or
mauza موضع in
Urdu,
giraaan گراں or
pind پنڈ in
Punjabi, and
kalay کلې in
Pashto. It is almost synonymous with 'village'.
Poland In Poland, the law recognises several different kinds of
rural settlements.
Przysiółek (which can be translated as "hamlet") refers to a cluster of farms.
Osada (which is typically translated as "settlement" but also can be translated as "hamlet") includes smaller settlements especially differing by type of buildings or inhabited by population connected with some place or workplace (like mill settlements, forest settlements, fishing settlements, railway settlements, former
State Agricultural Farm settlements). They can be an independent settlement, or a part of another settlement, like a village.
Romania In
Romania, hamlets are called '
(singular: '), and they represent villages that contain several houses at most. They are legally considered villages, and statistically, they are placed in the same category. Like villages, they do not have a separate administration, and thus are not an administrative division, but are part of a parent
commune.
Spain In
Spain, a hamlet is called
lugar,
aldea,
pedanía or '
(). The word comes from the Spanish term ' («estate»). In the South of Spain, the term '''' () is also used for designating small groups of rural dwellings or farmhouses. A hamlet in
Spain is a human settlement, usually located in rural areas, and typically smaller in size and population than a
village (called in Spain, '''' ). The hamlet is a common territorial organisation in the North West of Spain (
Asturias,
Cantabria and
Galicia) dependent on a larger entity (e.g.
parish or
municipality). In Spain, the hamlet is one of the categories in the official
gazetteer of population entities. In the Royal Order and Instruction of the 8 of March 1930, issued for the elaboration of the Annual gazetteer, the hamlet ('''') is defined as the population entity with the smallest population and neighbourhood, usually more disseminated than the
lugar, though its buildings can be also organised in streets and plazas.
Switzerland In the four national languages, hamlets are known as '
(German), ' (French), '
(Italian) and ' (
Romansh). A hamlet is always part of a larger
municipality or may be shared between two municipalities. The difference between a hamlet and a village is that typically a hamlet lacks a compact core settlement and lacks a central building such as a church or inn. However, some hamlets ('''') may have grown up as an unplanned settlement around a church. No population limit defines a hamlet and some hamlets have a larger population than some of the smallest municipalities. Generally, there are no street names in a hamlet; rather, addresses are given by hamlet name and a number. House numbers might start at one side of the hamlet and continue to the other side or may have no clear organization. A hamlet may form or have formed a '
(legal place of citizenship regardless of where a person was born or currently lives) and may own common property for the '.
United Kingdom England in Bedfordshire In
England, the word
hamlet (having the French origin given at the top of this article) means (in current usage) simply a small settlement, maybe of a few houses or farms, smaller than a village. However, traditionally and legally, it means a village or a town without a church, although hamlets are recognised as part of
land use planning policies and administration. Historically, it may refer to a secondary settlement in a
civil parish, after the main settlement (if any); such an example is the hamlet of
Chipping which is the secondary settlement within the civil parish of
Buckland. Hamlets may have been formed around a single source of economic activity such as a farm, mill, mine or harbour that employed its working population. Some hamlets may be the result of the
depopulation of a village; examples of such a hamlet are
Graby and
Shapwick. Because of the hilly
topography of the parish, the village of
Clent, situated on the
Clent Hills, consists of five distinct hamlets.
Northern Ireland In
Northern Ireland, the common Irish place name element ''
is sometimes considered equivalent to the term hamlet
in English, would actually have referred to what is known in English today as a townland'': that is to say, a geographical locality rather than a small village.
Scotland In the
Scottish Highlands, the term ''
, of Gaelic derivation, may be preferred to the term hamlet
. Also found in Scotland more generally is '', used in the specific case of a farm settlement, including outbuildings and agricultural workers' homes.
Wales The term hamlet was used in
Wales to denote a geographical subdivision of a parish (which might or might not contain a settlement). Elsewhere, mostly in England, these subdivisions were called "townships" or "tithings". The
Welsh word for "hamlet" is (also ). Both these words are diminutives of
pentref ("village") with the loose meaning of "small village".
United States Mississippi In
Mississippi, a 2009 state law (§ 17-27-5) set aside the term "municipal historical hamlet" to designate any former city, town, or village with a current population of less than 600 inhabitants that lost its charter before 1945. The first such designation was applied to
Bogue Chitto, Lincoln County.
New York In New York, hamlets are
unincorporated settlements within
towns. Hamlets are not legal entities and have no local government or official boundaries. Their approximate locations will often be noted on road signs, however, a specific service, such as water, sewer, or lighting provides only that hamlet with services. A hamlet could be described as the rural or suburban equivalent of a neighborhood in a city or village. The area of a hamlet may not be exactly defined; it may be
designated by the Census Bureau, or it may rely on some other form of border (such as a
ZIP Code, school district or fire district for more urbanized areas; rural hamlets are typically only demarcated by
speed zones on the roads serving them). Others, such as
Forestville, New York, will be the remnants of former villages, with borders coextant with the previously defined borders of the defunct or dissolved village. Some hamlets proximate to urban areas are sometimes continuous with their cities and appear to be neighborhoods, but they still are under the jurisdiction of the town. Some localities designated as hamlets, such as
Levittown in the
Town of Hempstead, with a population of over 50,000, are more populous than some incorporated cities in the state.
Oregon In
Oregon, specifically in
Clackamas County, a hamlet is a form of local government for small communities that allows the citizens therein to organize and coordinate community activities. Hamlets do not provide services, such as utilities or fire protection, and do not have the authority to levy
taxes or fees. There are four hamlets in Oregon:
Beavercreek,
Mulino,
Molalla Prairie, and
Stafford. == See also ==