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Just like anywhere else in the world, the US has settlements of all sizes. But if you’ve ever engaged with American media (or live there, of course), you’ve probably realised you don’t come across the term “village” that often.
So, what are villages called in America? In America, it’s more common to use the terms “small town” or “suburb” when referring to a smaller settlement. Most Americans would save the word village for quaint English or European settlements rather than something you’d find in the US.
American Village Citizenship Trust, Montevallo
Technically, there are villages in America. It’s used as a legal term to refer to a specific kind of jurisdiction, although its definition varies between states. For example, in Idaho, all municipalities are cities, but town and village are used informally.
But as mentioned above, “village” isn’t a common term in the US. Many Americans would save the term for speaking about small European settlements rather than something found in their own country.
You’ll still find the word village used in some settlement names. For example, there’s a Greenwich Village in New York City, specifically in Lower Manhattan.
Autumn Mist In The Village Of Tyringham In The Berkshires Stock Photo
Village is used in this way because it refers to a previously independent settlement that would’ve been named by earlier inhabitants (when it was more common to use village).
Similarly, village can be used to specifically differentiate from larger settlements. Another example comes from New York, where you’ll find the Village of Dryden inside the Town of Dryden.
The bottom line is that American villages do exist in the US, but most people associate the word with an antiquated type of settlement. It’s more common to use terms like “small town”, “suburb” or “district” when talking about settlements that Europeans would typically consider villages.
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It’ll probably come as no surprise to learn that village isn’t an American word. As an English word, it can trace its roots all the way back to Latin. However, the closest word,
The word village is linked to the word villa, which is Latin for house. A village simply meant a collection of homes and buildings, but went on to mean a settlement larger than a hamlet and smaller than a town. It’s only in the last few centuries that settlement definitions have taken on more technical meanings.
This is because the terms were important for land governance and taxes, and most modern English words (village, suburb, town) come from the early-to-late Middle Ages.
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If you asked an American, they’d likely be able to name a few villages, despite it being a term usually saved for European settlements. So, next time you hear an American say “small town”, you’ll know why!
A cottage property developer with 40 years experience. Our family business within the cottage building industry dates back over a century, I live and breathe everything to do with the classic English cottage.Few early agricultural villages in the United States survive as intact as Waterford, Virginia. It is a remarkable historic district that contains not only a village core with its early grid of streets dotted with a concentration of buildings dating from the late eighteenth century through the mid-nineteenth century, but also a vast expanse of agricultural land and open space surrounding the village core, preserving the pivotal relationship between the larger agrarian community and the service-oriented node of the village. The result is a place that aptly illustrates a common way of life in rural nineteenth-century America by providing the general feeling of a nineteenth-century rural village with few modern intrusions. This preservation of a sense of place and time is remarkable, especially in a district that is an active town and not a historic museum village. Click here for more information on the Waterford Historic District.
During the half century after the American Revolution, the young United States witnessed a market revolution that transformed American life in many ways. Historians debate the causes, the timing, and the extent of this transformation from region to region, and even from locality to locality, but there is no disputing that the decades between 1790 and 1840 witnessed major investments in transportation networks, the growth of manufacturing, and an increase in exchange activity that changed American life. For farming families, this often meant producing crops and goods for sale on the market, rather than mainly subsistence farming and making goods for self-consumption. These fundamental changes in the American economy contributed to changing settlement patterns, including a proliferation of market villages that supplied goods and services in agricultural areas. Often growing around a mill and a house of worship, these villages grew to include stores, tradespeople, and small manufactories, as well as growing numbers of non-farm residences.
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Established on lands occupied by indigenous peoples for centuries, the development of Waterford progressed gradually over the eighteenth century, after initial settlement by European Americans in 1733. Waterford’s growth reflected a general settlement pattern common in the Upland South and other agricultural regions—settlements that did not result in a dense residential cluster like a hamlet, village, or town. Instead, the Pennsylvania Quaker settlers who moved to the Waterford area in the early eighteenth century established what was essentially a dispersed community of farms, featuring large tracts of land resembling irregular tiles or a patchwork quilt of farms. The only visible focal points of community were the saw and flour mill constructed by Amos Janney during the 1730s on Catoctin Creek, and the Quaker meetinghouse built in 1741 (rebuilt in 1761). For more information, click here to read about the Waterford Mill, and here to read about the Fairfax Quaker Meeting House.
By around 1780, the small hamlet surrounding Waterford’s mill was showing signs of expansion. A series of subdivisions in 1780, 1801, and around 1812 converted the small hamlet into a village, as agricultural lands along existing roads were divided into smaller building lots, and new streets were platted. The village grew rapidly during the next three decades, and by 1835, Waterford boasted six mercantile stores, four taverns, two churches, two “free schools, ” two water-powered mills, three physicians, two house-joiners, two cabinetmakers, two hatters, one each of a boot and shoe manufacturer, a painter, a chair-maker, and a tailor. Waterford was the third largest settlement in Loudoun County by this time, with a population of about 400 people residing in 70 dwellings—of which 80 residents were free Blacks, and 42 were enslaved persons. Waterford’s growth between 1780 and 1830, like that of other settlements in the region, was especially tied to the commercial production of grain and flour for broad markets.
In the decades that followed, Waterford continued to function as an evolving agricultural service village. The village experienced an equilibrium in growth, maintaining its general footprint while population levels fluctuated only slightly from decade to decade. The century between 1836 and 1936 witnessed the construction of at least 54 new buildings, demonstrating a high level of continued investment in the village—including three new churches, two new schools, a jail, a post office, six new stores or shops, and many new houses. Of these new buildings, 35 were built between 1870 and 1910, including much of the village’s preserved commercial core, as well as two buildings built specifically for Black residents of Waterford, the Second Street School and the John Wesley Church. This sustained growth in the village is notable, as the town was bypassed by the 19th century railroad networks that traversed Loudoun County, Virginia. The construction of these new buildings signaled Waterford’s continued vitality as a local agricultural service village, as its farmers produced impressive quantities of commercial corn and wheat. Learn more about the Second Street School here, and more about African American education during Reconstruction here.
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By the middle of the 1920s, farmers in Loudoun County were shifting to agricultural production that relied less heavily on wheat and other grains, resulting in the increased obsolescence of small-scale milling operations like that in Waterford. Coupled with the rise of automobile ownership and the new ease of traveling to other towns to shop, these shifts directly impacted the livelihoods of many residents in small agricultural villages like Waterford. The Great Depression reinforced Waterford’s decline, affecting the farmers outside of town as well as the owners of the village’s houses and stores. After almost 200 years, Waterford seemed to have in many ways run
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