Subject: Re: [BoundaryPoint] Re: Jan Mayen (was: EU or not)<br/>
Date: Sep 15, 2002 @ 21:44<br/>
Author: Peter Smaardijk (Peter Smaardijk &lt;smaardijk@...&gt;)<br/>
<a href="7261.htm">Prev</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Post in Topic&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="7265.htm">Next</a>&emsp;[<a href="topic7255.htm">All</a> Posts]<br/>
<a href="7261.htm">Prev</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Post in Time&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="7263.htm">Next</a><br/>
<br/><br/>
<div id="ygrps-yiv-33589100">--- Grant Hutchison &lt;<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="mailto:granthutchison@...">granthutchison@...</a>&gt; wrote:<br/>
<blockquote><span title="ireply"> &gt; &gt; I think it&#39;s one of these claims that can never be proved. The <br/>
&gt; definition <br/>
&gt; &gt; of a city seems to vary between countries and I&#39;m not aware of <br/>
&gt; &gt; international standards in this respect :-(<br/>
&gt; The same thing is going on at the other end of the world: the <br/>
&gt; Argentinians describe Ushuaia as &quot;the southernmost town in the <br/>
&gt; world&quot;, while south across the Beagle Channel lies the Chilean <br/>
&gt; settlement of Puerto Williams, which the Chileans call &quot;the <br/>
&gt; southernmost town in the world&quot;.<br/>
&gt; <br/>
&gt; Grant<br/>
<br/>
 </span></blockquote>&quot;City&quot; is a bit of a difficult definition. Only recently Michael Donner<br/>
denounced my claim that Comines was a double-town on both sides of the<br/>
border. I mentioned that the Belgian Comines wasn&#39;t a separate<br/>
municipality anymore, but part of the new municipality<br/>
Comines-Warneton. But just look at &quot;municipality&quot;: in France, some<br/>
municipalities only have a couple (i.e. two) inhabitants, and there are<br/>
even municipalities without inhabitants whatsoever! In the Netherlands,<br/>
any municipality under 10000 inhabitants is at risk of being merged<br/>
(exceptions: for example islands, and extremely rich municipalities:<br/>
Schiermonnikoog, Vlieland, Rozendaal). In Belgium, it&#39;s the same story,<br/>
the exceptions being the municipalities that can&#39;t be merged without<br/>
serious trouble between Flemings and Walloons (Herstappe, Mesen).<br/>
<br/>
So what is a city?<br/>
<br/>
I always thought that Alert in Canada was the northernmost city of the<br/>
world. But I don&#39;t know how many people live there, let alone if they<br/>
have some sort of an elected council and a mayor...<br/>
<br/>
Peter S.<br/>
<br/>
__________________________________________________<br/>
Do you Yahoo!?<br/>
Yahoo! News - Today&#39;s headlines<br/>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://news.yahoo.com">http://news.yahoo.com</a></div>