What size/population do you consider to be a big city, small town or somewhere in between? (apartments, rent)

[Amythest11]

1-1000: Very small town
1001-5000: Small Town
5001-10000: Mid-size town
10001-30000: Large town
30001-120000: Small city
120001-500000: Mid-size city
500000+: Large city

For perspective, where I grew up had around 60,000 people and it was always thought of as a small city.

[pnwguy2]

There are some aberrations here that need to be mentioned.

Such as, The Tri-Cities, WA, a metro of three separate cites in South-Central WA State, that now are 300K in total population. Continued growth is projected, so it would fall into the mid-size category, but somewhat different than most one-centered cities.

[uksam21]

According to your logic Lexington, KY is a large city.

[ragnarkar]

For the largest city in an area:

Small town: under 10,000

Town: 10,000 to 50,000

Small City: 50,000 to 200,000

Small Metro or Big City: largest city is 200,000+

Large Metro: largest city is 500,000+ and the metro has at least 1 million

World Class City: 5+ million in the metro AND good cultural anemities

[Count David]

Big city: 2.6M+ metro
Major city: 900K-2.6M metro
Small large city: 500K-900K metro
Metros anchored by small cities: 300K-500K metro
Small cities: 150K-300K metro
Big towns: 100K-150K metro
Functionally large small towns: 50K-100K metro
Very small cities: 20K-50K
Big small towns: 10K-20K
Small towns: 5K-10K
Very small towns: 1K-5K
Village: <1K

Change the names if you like, but to me these break points are where the biggest changes are found.

[CookieSkoon]

I don't know if I already weighed in on this but here it is from a rural perspective, or at least my own variant thereof-

Blink and you miss it - under 1000
Small Town - 1000-5000
Average Town - 5000-10,000
Micro city - 10,000-50,000
City - 50,000-200,000
Big city - 200,000-600,000
Major city - 600K+

Bear in mind I grew up in a fairly scattered town of around 100 total residents. Everybody knew everybody and there was no stoplight. Half the town was farmland or forest. To us the nearby town of around 2000 people was the place to go, "the big city" so to speak. If you wanted to go further you could visit the sprawling metropolis of Elmira or Ithaca! haha

For further reference, when I first moved to Baton Rouge it was overwhelmingly large to me. At the time it had a population of around 200k.

Cincinnati blew my mind when I first truly visited it, and Pittsburgh, well, that took the cake too.

I had been to the Rochester area a few times but always the outskirts, as a kid I never actually saw the city itself. If I had it likely would had taken me for a loop. I really never knew how big it was until my adult years.

People remark on how connected and generally urban NY state is, but you grow up in the hills and it really can be isolating. Especially if you don't get out much.

[KoNgFooCj]

Small town: 1-4,999

Town/large town: 5,000-24,999

Small city: 25,000-119,999

Mid size city: 120,000-299,999

Big city: 300,000-499,999

Very big city: 500,000-999,000

Huge city: 1,000,000-1,999,999

Megacity: 2,000,000+

[_Buster]

Well city limits poulations are meaningless. Its trivia. they all have much different shapes and sizes. the metro areas are the determining factor.

[TheTimidBlueBars]

When I moved to Reno and started exploring the hinterlands of Nevada, my sense of what a "city" is changed drastically. Out there, the biggest thing for 100 miles in any direction might be a town of 4,000 people, so it does feel like a "city" when it draws people from around the region and it's the biggest thing around.

Here in Washington it's not quite as empty, but I'd still consider anything over like 30k people (Wenatchee, Olympia, Walla Walla, Yakima, etc.) to be a "city" in this local context.

As for "large cities", though, that's a term I use more in a national context. I'd say that starts at around 2 million people in the metro. (I wouldn't want to live anywhere much smaller than this, long-term.)

[MB1562]

It isn't about population but how the region looks/functions. Phoenix (pop. 1.5M) doesn't seem anything like a big city, but rather a sprawly mess of giant suburbs. Boston (pop. 685k) looks like a real city and functions like one too.