Urban-type settlement

Urban-type settlement is an official designation for lesser urbanized settlements, used in several Central and Eastern European countries. The term was primarily used in the Soviet Union and later also for a short time in socialist Bulgaria and socialist Poland. It remains in use today in nine of the post-Soviet states.

The designation was used in all 15 member republics of the Soviet Union from 1922, when it replaced a number of terms that could have been translated by the English term "town" (Russia – posad, Ukraine – містечко, mistechko, Belarus – мястэчка, miastečka (the last two are diminutives from місто and места, correspondingly, similarly to the Polish word: miasteczko, lit. 'small town' being derived from miasto) and others). It was introduced later in Poland (1954) and Bulgaria (1964). All the urban-type settlements in Poland were transformed into other types of settlement (town or village) in 1972, in Bulgaria and five of the post-Soviet republics (Armenia, Moldova, and the three Baltic states), they were changed in the early 1990s, while in Ukraine in 2023. Today, this term is still used in the other nine post-Soviet republics – Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. It is also used in Transnistria, an unrecognised breakaway state in Moldova.

What counts as an urban-type settlement differs between time periods and countries and often between different divisions of a single country. However, the criteria generally focus on the presence of urban infrastructure or resort facilities for urban residents.