Talk:Funäsfjällen
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"Nearest City"
[edit]By what definition is Sveg the nearest city? I realise that finding any concrete definition for the term "city" is difficult but surely some localities would have to fall outside any such definition. Wikipedia's own article on the term "City" includes a section on the distinction between towns and cities offering no clear rule for distinguishing between the two but suggesting a few helpful guidelines such as:
"a town possessing city status",
"an urban locality exceeding an arbitrary population size",
and/or
"a town dominating other towns with particular regional economic or administrative significance".
The locality of Sveg does not, as far as I am aware, possess city status by any legal standard applicable nor by any cultural tradition.
It could be argued that the arbitrary minimum population size limit for a city is somewhere below Sveg's 2500 inhabitants but I doubt that's a widely held belief. I don't actually know though, it's an arbitrary limit and I'm being arbitrary in my estimation. It's interesting to note perhaps that Wikipedia's article on cities, referenced above, starts by describing a city as "a relatively large and permanent human settlement" and tends to refer throughout the article to towns as being, as a rule, relatively smaller. The Wikipedia article for "Town" defines it as "a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city". Is Sveg to be considered a village, judging by population size? According to Wikipedia's article called "Village" one is defined as "a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town, with a population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand". That would suggest that Sveg could be a village if going by population size alone, albeit in the upper bounds of that definition, possibly being a "town" but therefore not by population alone a "city".
Is Sveg then lifted to the status of "city" by having dominance over other towns, possessing particular regional economic or administrative significance? Maybe. It is the seat of the local municipality. Is that enough? It's my opinion that it isn't quite enough. Having merely some regional administrative significance can't be enough. If it were then practically any municipal seat would qualify and we'd have to call localities of less than 1000 people with limited administrative significance, no economic significance and no formal legal city status or historical city status or just culturally accepted city status, cities. Indeed the term "town" or even "village" might seem more appropriate to describe Sveg.
Perhaps Wikipedia uses a very inclusive definition of the term "city" in its ski area infobox. If not then I suggest that the Sveg is not in fact the nearest city to Funäsfjällen but that the nearest city is instead, depending on one's definition of course, more likely Östersund (44 000 inhabitants, capital of the county, and historically a chartered city) or maybe even Trondheim (population of 181 000, administrative centre of its county, and former capital of Norway with a prominent cathedral).