> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.countrystatecity.in/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# City Types
> Reference for the 35 distinct values of the cities.type field, their meanings, and how to filter down to genuine settlements
Every city record carries an optional `type` field describing what kind of place it is. The value is inherited from the upstream [GeoNames](https://www.geonames.org/) feature classification.
The `type` field mixes two ideas — *what a place is* (`city`, `town`, `village`) and *what administrative role it fills* (`adm2`, `county`, `parish`). The same place can be tagged either way. For example, **Dallas** is `adm2` because it is the seat of Dallas County, and major Australian cities are `adm1` because they are seats of state-level governments.
## All Type Values
There are **35 distinct values** across **153,765** city rows.
| `type` | Count | Settlement? | Meaning |
| ---------------------- | -----: | :---------: | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `city` | 96,098 | ✅ | Actual city |
| `adm2` | 20,796 | ✅ | 2nd-order admin division — usually a real city that is also a county/district seat |
| `adm3` | 15,774 | ✅ | Mostly real municipalities/communes tagged with their admin role |
| `section` | 5,346 | ✅ | Suburbs and districts of larger cities |
| `county` | 4,409 | ❌ | County-level admin unit — not a settlement |
| `adm4` | 3,909 | ✅ | Similar mix to `adm3` |
| `adm1` | 3,505 | ✅ | 1st-order admin division — usually a state/region seat (e.g. major Australian cities) |
| `district` | 2,381 | ✅ | District-level populated place |
| *(null)* | 1,900 | ⚠️ | No type assigned — see below |
| `regency` | 390 | ❌ | Indonesian *kabupaten* — admin division |
| `prefecture` | 369 | ❌ | Prefecture-level admin division |
| `locality` | 319 | ✅ | Named populated place |
| `capital` | 281 | ✅ | National or regional capital |
| `municipality` | 209 | ✅ | Municipality |
| `parish` | 80 | ❌ | Louisiana-style parish (= county) |
| `banner` | 52 | ❌ | Inner Mongolia *banner* — admin division |
| `town` | 48 | ✅ | Town |
| `province` | 36 | ❌ | Province-level admin division |
| `adm5` | 16 | ✅ | 5th-order admin division (populated) |
| `abandoned` | 15 | ❌ | Abandoned place |
| `cities` | 13 | ✅ | Data artifact of `city` |
| `area` | 12 | ❌ | Generic administrative area |
| `village` | 10 | ✅ | Village |
| `historical` | 9 | ❌ | Historical place — not a live settlement |
| `settlement` | 9 | ✅ | Settlement |
| `oblast` | 8 | ❌ | Oblast — admin division |
| `gov_seat` | 6 | ✅ | Government seat (populated) |
| `special municipality` | 6 | ✅ | Special municipality |
| `administrative zone` | 5 | ❌ | Administrative zone |
| `region` | 4 | ❌ | Region-level admin division |
| `destroyed` | 3 | ❌ | Destroyed place |
| `township` | 3 | ✅ | Township |
| `religious` | 2 | ❌ | Religious site — not a settlement |
| `subdistrict` | 1 | ✅ | Subdistrict (populated) |
| `historical_capital` | 1 | ❌ | Former capital — not a live settlement |
## Filtering to Genuine Settlements
For use cases like "find the nearest city to a location" or "populate a dropdown", you want to exclude admin-only and non-place types. Use an **exclusion list** rather than an inclusion list — any new settlement-style value added in the future is kept by default.
**Exclude these types:**
```
county, regency, prefecture, parish, banner, province, area, oblast,
administrative zone, region, abandoned, historical, destroyed, religious,
historical_capital
```
### SQL
```sql theme={null}
SELECT *
FROM cities
WHERE (
type IS NULL
OR type NOT IN (
'county', 'regency', 'prefecture', 'parish', 'banner', 'province',
'area', 'oblast', 'administrative zone', 'region',
'abandoned', 'historical', 'destroyed', 'religious', 'historical_capital'
)
)
AND latitude IS NOT NULL
AND longitude IS NOT NULL;
```
`type NOT IN (...)` evaluates to `UNKNOWN` for rows where `type` is `NULL`, silently dropping them. The explicit `type IS NULL OR ...` keeps null-type rows. Remove the `type IS NULL` clause only if you want to exclude them.
### JavaScript
```javascript theme={null}
const EXCLUDED_TYPES = new Set([
'county', 'regency', 'prefecture', 'parish', 'banner', 'province',
'area', 'oblast', 'administrative zone', 'region',
'abandoned', 'historical', 'destroyed', 'religious', 'historical_capital',
]);
const settlements = cities.filter(
(c) => !EXCLUDED_TYPES.has(c.type) && c.latitude != null && c.longitude != null
);
```
### Python
```python theme={null}
EXCLUDED_TYPES = {
'county', 'regency', 'prefecture', 'parish', 'banner', 'province',
'area', 'oblast', 'administrative zone', 'region',
'abandoned', 'historical', 'destroyed', 'religious', 'historical_capital',
}
settlements = [
c for c in cities
if c.get('type') not in EXCLUDED_TYPES
and c.get('latitude') is not None
and c.get('longitude') is not None
]
```
## Records with No Type
About **1,900** rows have a `null` type. They are a mix of legitimate places and unclassified entries. For strict settlement queries, the safest signal is the presence of valid coordinates (`latitude`/`longitude` not null), and — where available — a non-null `population`.
## Related
Full cities table definition including the type field.
How overseas territories and dual-modeled entities affect city queries.