Neighbourhood
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- Neighbourhood is also a term used in mathematics.
A neighbourhood (in Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (in American English) is a geographically localised community located within a larger city or suburb. The residents of a given neighbourhood are called neighbours (or neighbors), although this term may also be used across much larger distances in rural areas.
Traditionally, a neighbourhood is small enough that the neighbours are all able to know each other. However in practice, neighbours may not know one another very well at all. Villages aren't divided into neighbourhoods, because they are already small enough that the villagers can all know each other.
In Canada and the United States, neighbourhoods are often given official or semi-official status through neighbourhood associations, or block watches. These may regulate such matters as lawn care and fence height, and they may provide such services as block parties, neighbourhood parks, and community security. In some other places the equivalent organisation is the parish, though a parish may have several neighbourhoods within it depending on the area.
In the People's Republic of China, the term is generally used for the urban administrative unit usually found immediately below the district level, although an intermediate, subdistrict level exists in some cities. They are also called streets (administrative terminology varies from city to city). Neighbourhoods encompass 2,000 to 10,000 families. Within neighbourhoods, families are grouped into smaller residential units of 100 to 600 families and supervised by a residents' committee; these are subdivided into residents' small groups of fifteen to forty families. (See Political divisions of China)