[OSM-talk] Place: city,town,village,hamlet,suburb

[Robert T Wyatt]

Without having been part of the defining discussions, it seems to me 
that these terms are intended to inform a map renderer about population 
and so the monikers are arbitrary (as are the divisions, possibly). This 
allows a smaller settlement to be drawn differently, perhaps, than a 
larger settlement without requiring it to be (so the rendering agent 
might hide hamlets at 1:250,000, let's say). If this is true, then 
perhaps the wiki should warn the user not to try to impose their 
definitions on this data field. It's also possible that cartographers or 
geographers use a standard set of break points when categorizing 
population, if this is the case, then it should be stated.