Texts about towns and cities
can be tricky to translate. One thorny problem which arises again and again is
how to translate the terms used for parts of the city. Municipalities are often broken down
into smaller parts. Sometimes these smaller parts have an administrative
function, sometimes they arise from social or historical traditions. The
best way to research the terminology of the parts of towns or cities is to look
at actual examples. However, the terms used in my two languages (German and
English) turn out to be rather confusing and inconsistent.
Terms used in German
The basic term in
German is “Bezirk”, “Stadtteil”, “Stadtbezirk”, “Ortsteil” etc.
I live in Berlin, and
here the term “Bezirk” is used with a strictly defined meaning – it denotes an
administrative urban district with its own elected parliament and its own
administrative structure. There are 12 of these “Bezirke”. My “Bezirk” is
called Spandau, which is on the western edge of Berlin and is itself broken
down into 9 formally defined sub-districts, known as “Ortsteile”. The most
well-known “Ortsteile” are probably Kladow, Gatow and Siemensstadt, closely
followed by the area where I live, Staaken. But there are also a number of smaller
areas with locally familiar names such as Klosterfelde, Altstadt, Neustadt, Wasserstadt,
Waldsiedlung, Pichelsdorf. These are referred to by terms such as “Gebiet”, “Ortsteil”
“Ortslage”, “Quartier”, “Kiez”.
What about other towns and cities in
Germany? In Mainz there are 15 defined “Stadtteile”, which are referred to as “Ortsbezirke”
in administrative texts. The officially defined structure in Stuttgart is rather
more complicated, with 23 “Stadtbezirke”, 152 “Stadtteile” and 318 “Stadtviertel”.
Munich has 25 official “Stadtbezirke”, but Wikipedia lists many informally used
local names for smaller areas, which it refers to as “Stadtteile”, “Quartiere”
and “Siedlungen”.
Other German-speaking countries have
a similarly broad range of terms. For example, the larger urban districts in
Zürich are the 12 “Stadtkreise” or “Kreise”, each of which is made up of 2-4 “Quartiere”.
Basel (Basle) has 19 official residential districts called “Quartiere”. Geneva
has 4 “Stadteile”, each of which is sub-divided into “Quartiere”. Vienna has 23
“Bezirke”, which the locals often refer to by number rather than by name, and
which are made up of “Bezirksteile” and smaller areas known as “Grätzl”.
The list of terms for parts of cities
in German is therefore long: Bezirk, Ortsteil, Gebiet, Ortslage, Quartier,
Kiez, Stadtteil, Ortsbezirk, Stadtbezirk, Stadtviertel, Quartier, Siedlung,
Stadtkreis, Kreis, Grätzl – and this list is certainly not exhaustive.
Terms used in English
In my home city of
Coventry (UK), the parts of the city are mainly referred to as “suburbs” – even
in central parts of the city and without distinction in terms of size. There
are also some smaller units called “wards”. However, the suburbs do not appear
to play any administrative role in the government of the city.
Just a few miles to the
north-west, in Birmingham, the terminology is more varied, including terms such
as “metropolitan borough”, “formal district”, “council constituency” “ward” and
“suburb”. In London I found references for terms such as “borough”, “urban
district”, “ward”, “suburb”, “neighbourhood”, “local area”, “inner London” and “outer
London”.
Other English-speaking
countries also present a stunning variety of terms. New York has five formally
defined “boroughs” (sometimes spelled “boro”). They are broken up into “neighborhoods”.
The term “suburb” is rather emotional, and many New York residents are adamant
that suburbs are only found outside the five boroughs. San Francisco has “districts”,
“quadrants”, “neighborhoods” and many informally named smaller areas.
The English terms
listed here, then, are suburb, ward, borough, boro, metropolitan borough,
district, urban district, formal district, neighbourhood, neighborhood, local
area, inner, outer, quadrant – and again, this list is far from exhaustive. Further
research in other towns and cities and other English-speaking countries is sure
to turn up many more examples.
Help! What can I do in
my text?
This variety of terms
in both languages means first of all that there is no absolute right answer for
any terminology question. Perhaps I could suggest a provisional sub-division
into primary, secondary and informal parts of the town or city, although some
of the terms will overlap, and many distinctions are likely to be relative.
Primary
sub-divisions:
German:
Bezirk, Stadtbezirk, Ortsbezirk, Stadtteil, Stadtkreis
English: borough, boro,
urban district, formal district, inner/outer
Secondary
sub-divisions:
German:
Ortsteil, Gebiet, Ortslage, Quartier, Kiez
English: district,
neighbourhood, neighborhood, local area, suburb
Informal
areas:
German:
Quartier, Kiez, Siedlung, Viertel, Grätzl
English: quadrant,
ward, suburb, local area, residential district, residential estate, housing area
Scratching the surface
I realise that these
terms do not cover all that can be said about urban locations. For example, how
are the German “City” and “Innenstadt” linked, and how closely do they
correlate with the “city centre”, “inner city” or “central business district”?
How do we treat terms such as “Stadtrand” and “Randlagen”, and what exactly are
“Mittelzentren”? The list of open questions could go on and on, and perhaps I
will come back to some of these terms. But hey, I haven’t managed a blog post
for about 9 months, and this first venture back into “active service” has to end somewhere,
doesn’t it?.
