Talk:Hill town

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Urban studies and planning

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Notes on expansion

I did not find any good and detailed source that treats the Mediterranean, English, and Indian hill town as a whole. So in the future I plan to add separate sections for English and Indian towns; it is possible that the sources could be better reflected by separating English and Indian hill towns into their own articles. The Mediterranean ones appear to be fused with the contemporary architecture development and thus might need to stay in this article. Of course, YMMV. Викидим (talk) 02:11, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Italian towns already have a very short article stub Hilltowns in Italy. Викидим (talk) 07:06, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Definition

A source for a definition is needed. Викидим (talk) 02:13, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

After some extensive reading, it appears to me that there is no ironclad definition of hill town across all locations / research areas, etc. I have trimmed the "definition" in the lead to the vague bare minimum. Is anyone has a good source, feel free to contribute. Note that, for example, Mediterranean and English hill towns are very different (hilltops + fortifications for the former, hillsides + rivers for the latter). Researchers talk about both side-by-side, but do not mix them together. Викидим (talk) 01:02, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification requests

@Ehrenkater: This topic is about you clarification requests in the "England" section. The text is based on the source as indicated (Owen 2003). The original Owen's text is: At one end of the scale this excludes cities and larger hill towns such as Bath, Durham and Lincoln, where the observer rarely sees the whole settlement. At the other end of the scale it excludes smaller villages that have little complexity of use and form. Please let me know how can I fix the text to better reflect the source. Викидим (talk) 06:55, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Vikidim:

My immediate reason for requesting clarification was the clause "that lack complexity". I have no idea what you mean by complexity, so cannot suggest an alternative wording for this. I read the quote "that have little complexity in use and form", but I still don't understand what that means. Best to leave it out. (By the way, where does the 2,000 population criterion come from?) More generally, I have problems with the whole paragraph. The simplistic definition of "hill town" is "town built on a hill". It is debatable whether the examples given, Bath, Durham and Lincoln, fully satisfy this definition:

The historic centre of Bath is only at about 30 metres above sea level, nowhere near a hill.
The historic centre of Lincoln (the cathedral) is at 60 or 70 metres above sea level. It is true that it overlooks much lower ground to the south, which is no doubt one reason why it was built there, but it is at about the same level as the ground to the north, so it is not a stand-alone hill.
The historic centre of Durham (again the cathedral, and the castle) is at around 100 metres above sea level, which is much the same as the ground to the immediate north, south, and west. It was sited there not because it is on a hill (which it isn't) but because it is almost surrounded by the river Wear.

Hope this helps. Ehrenkater (talk) 09:55, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PS. Lincoln is well-known to geographers not as a hill town but as a classic example of a "gap town", see http://fsherrenpgcesettlement.blogspot.com/2013/08/site-and-situation-of-settlements.html---Ehrenkater (talk) 13:27, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for a detailed response. It seems that I need a better source for English hill towns. Викидим (talk) 22:52, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

American hill towns

US hill towns is a special breed. I am hereby seeking opinions of other editors on whether they should be integrated here or have a separate article linked only through {{also}}. Викидим (talk) 07:09, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]