city, citizen

A city is a large human settlement. It can be defined as a permanent and densely settled place with administratively defined boundaries whose members work primarily on non-agricultural tasks. Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, and communication. Their density facilitates interaction between people, government organisations and businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process, such as improving efficiency of goods and service distribution. This concentration also can have significant negative consequences, such as forming urban heat islands, concentrating pollution, and stressing water supplies and other resources.

A city is distinguished from other human settlements by its relatively great size, but also by its functions and its special symbolic status, which may be conferred by a central authority. The term can also refer either to the physical streets and buildings of the city or to the collection of people who dwell there, and can be used in a general sense to mean urban rather than rural territory.

The word "city" and the related "civilization" come from the Latin root civitas, originally meaning citizenship or community member and eventually coming to correspond with urbs [a walled city in Ancient Rome], meaning "city" in a more physical sense. The Roman civitas was closely linked with the Greek polis—another common root appearing in English words such as metropolis. Urban geography deals both with cities in their larger context and with their internal structure.

Citizenship is the status of a person recognized under the law of a country (and/or local jurisdiction) of belonging to thereof. In international law it is membership to a sovereign state (a country). Some countries permit their citizens to have multiple citizenships, while others insist on exclusive allegiance. A person who does not have citizenship of any state is said to be stateless, while one who lives on state borders whose territorial status is uncertain is a border-lander.

A person can be recognized or granted citizenship on a number of bases. Usually citizenship based on circumstances of birth is automatic, but an application may be required.

• Citizenship by birth. If one or both of a person's parents are citizens of a given state, then the person may have the right to be a citizen of that state as well.
• Born within a country. Some people are automatically citizens of the state in which they are born.
• Citizenship by marriage. Many countries fast-track naturalization based on the marriage of a person to a citizen.
• Naturalization. States normally grant citizenship to people who have entered the country legally and been granted permit to stay, or been granted political asylum, and also lived there for a specified period.
• Citizenship by investment or Economic Citizenship. Wealthy people invest money in property or businesses, buy government bonds or simply donate cash directly, in exchange for citizenship and a passport.

六级/考研单词: perpetual, dense, sanitation, utility, interact, pollute, confer, physics, dwell, territory, correspond, geography, jurisdiction, sovereign, multiple, uncertain, norm, illicit, asylum, invest, donate, passport