What are agglomerations, metropolitan areas, urban settlements, municipalities and communities and what is the difference?
All these terms are a more exact definition of city or town. Cities can be defined on a geographical level (i.e. the actual extent of a settlement) or on a political level (i.e. the city is defined by political borders, even if rural population is included). Agglomerations and metropolitan areas (which are synonyms) as well as urban settlements are usually defined on a geographical level while municipalities and communities (used synonymously) are defined on a political level. Thus, a municipality may consist of several urban settlements while on the other hand an urban settlement may comprise several municipalities.
