Hamlet (place)

A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement.^{[citation needed]} Sometimes a hamlet is defined for official or administrative purposes.^{[citation needed]}

The word and concept of a hamlet can be traced back to Norman England, where the Old French hamelet came to apply to small human settlements.

The word comes from Anglo-Norman hamelet, corresponding to Old French hamelet, the diminutive of Old French hamel meaning a little village. This, in turn, is a diminutive of Old French ham, possibly borrowed from (West Germanic) Franconian languages. It is related to the modern French hameau, Dutch heem, Frisian hiem, German Heim, Old English hām, and Modern English home.

In Afghanistan, the word "hamlet" may be used to translate the term "qala" (Dari: قلعه, Pashto: کلي). The Afghan qala is a fortified group of houses, generally with a community building such as a mosque but without a marketplace. The qala is the smallest type of settlement in Afghan society, outsized by the village (Dari/Pashto: ده), which is larger and includes a commercial area.

In Canada's three territories, hamlets are officially designated municipalities.

In Canada's provinces, hamlets are usually small unincorporated communities within a larger municipality (similar to civil townships in the United States), such as many communities within the single-tier municipalities of Ontario,^{[citation needed]} Alberta's specialized and rural municipalities, and Saskatchewan's rural municipalities.

Canada's two largest hamlets—Fort McMurray (formerly incorporated as a city) and Sherwood Park—are located in Alberta. They each have populations, within their main urban area, over 60,000—well over the 10,000-person threshold that can choose to incorporate as a city in Alberta. As such, these two hamlets have been further designated by the Province of Alberta as urban service areas. An urban service area is recognized as equivalent to a city for provincial and federal program delivery and grant eligibility.

A hamlet (French: hameau) is a group of rural dwellings, usually too small to be considered a village. The term Lieu-dit is also applied to hamlets but it can also refer to uninhabited localities.