A post town is a required part of all postal addresses in the United Kingdom, and a basic unit of the postal delivery system.^[1] Including the correct post town in the address increases the chances of a letter or parcel being delivered on time. Post towns are usually based upon the location of delivery offices. Currently their main function is to distinguish between locality or street names in addresses not including a postcode.^[2]

Organisation[link]

There are approximately 1,500 post towns which are organised at the convenience of the Royal Mail. Each post town usually corresponds to one or more postal districts and each post town can cover an area including many individual towns and villages. Post towns rarely correspond to political boundaries and often group places that for all other purposes are quite separate.

In some places several post towns correspond to a single postal district with each post town covering one or more postcode sectors. There are anomalous examples where post towns and post codes do not coincide. For example, the post code sector EH14 5 is within three post towns: Juniper Green, Currie and Balerno, while Balerno is also within other sectors, such as EH14 7.

Usage[link]

The Royal Mail states that the post town must be included on all items and should be printed in capitals.^[3]

1 Vallance Road

LONDON

E2 1AA

The system means that some addresses will have post towns that correspond to a place nearby, or cover a very large area. The use of post codes means that it is no longer necessary to include the former postal county in a postal address. Some post towns, known as special post towns, never required the inclusion of a postal county, either because the town was large or because it gave its name to the county.

Locality[link]

In some places, additional locality information such as a village or suburb name is added above the post town giving a more specific location.

Where this is a required part of the official postal address, Royal Mail terms this the "dependent locality". In a limited number of places a "double dependent locality" line is also required, preceding the dependent locality line.

Locality information other than the post town is not always part of the official postal address. In particular, within the London post town, each postcode district name corresponds to a numbered postcode district and is therefore not required in the postal address if the postcode is present. For example, "Bethnal Green" is the name of the "E2" postcode district and is optional in the following address:

1 Vallance Road

Bethnal Green

LONDON

E2 1AA

If no valid postcode is provided, or if the sorting machine rejects the letter, the use of optional locality or county information may assist manual sorting. Whether optional or part of the official postal address, locality details help to relate postal addresses to local placenames. In the absence of a full valid postcode, they may prevent ambiguity where there is more than one street with the same name covered by a post town or postcode district, or where post towns in different counties have the same name.

Via[link]

Traditionally, where a place such as a village was served by a post town entirely distinct from its location, the word "Via" or "Near" ("Nr.") was added before the post town. For example:

1 High Street

Sewardstone

Via London

E4 1AA

However, the Royal Mail discourages this usage^[1] because their optical character recognition technology and Mailsort lookup tables check for the post town at the beginning of a line if the postcode is missing, unreadable or incorrect. Additionally, "Near" and "Nr." can be confused with "North".

Ambiguous post town names[link]

Post town names are unique within each former postal county and each postcode area. But across the UK, some post towns have identical or similar names. For Mailsort purposes, post towns in unpostcoded addresses can be pre-sorted only if the first 10 characters of the post town name correspond unambiguously to only one post town. In addition, the following post towns cover such large locations or have shared sorting routes that the town name is insufficient for determining the relevant delivery area without reference to the postcode or further locality information:

• BARNSLEY (S)
• BELFAST (BT)
• BIRMINGHAM (B)
• CARDIFF (CF)
• CHESTERFIELD (S)
• GLASGOW (G)
• LEEDS (LS)
• LONDON (E, EC, N, NW, SE, SW, W, WC)
• MANCHESTER (M)
• MANSFIELD (NG)
• NOTTINGHAM (NG)
• REDDITCH (B)
• SALFORD (M)
• SHEFFIELD (S)

References[link]

External links[link]

• List of UK post towns (as of 2007)

Çeşme, Turkey a coastal Turkish town with houses in regional style and an Ottoman Castle.

The alpine town of Davos in the Swiss Alps.

Reading, England, is a large town which has unsuccessfully tried to become a city.

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size definition for what constitutes a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many "small towns" in the United States would be regarded as villages in the United Kingdom, while many British "small towns" would qualify as cities in the United States.

Origin and use[link]

The word town shares an origin with the German word Zaun, the Dutch word tuin, and the Old Norse tun. The German word Zaun comes closest to the original meaning of the word: a fence of any material.

In English and Dutch, the meaning of the word took on the sense of the space which these fences enclosed. In English, it was a small city that could not afford or was not allowed to build walls or other larger fortifications, and built a palisade or stockade instead (many early English settlements in North America used stockades.) In the Netherlands, this space was a garden, more specifically those of the wealthy, which had a high fence or a wall around them (like the garden of palace 't Loo in Apeldoorn, which was the example for the privy garden of William and Mary at Hampton Court). In Old Norse tun means a (grassy) place between farmhouses, and is still used in a similar meaning in modern Norwegian.

In Old English and Early and Middle Scots, the word ton, toun, etc. could refer to kinds of settlements as diverse as agricultural estates and holdings, partly picking up the Norse sense (as in the Scots word fermtoun) at one end of the scale, to fortified municipality at the other. If there was any distinction between toun (fortified municipality) and burgh (unfortified municipality) as claimed by some^[who?], it did not last in practice as burghs and touns developed. For example "Edina Burgh" or "Edinburgh" (called a city today) was built around a fort and eventually came to have a defensive wall.

In some cases, "town" is an alternate name for "city" or "village" (especially a larger village). Sometimes, the word "town" is short for "township". In general, today towns can be differentiated from townships, villages, or hamlets on the basis of their economic character, in that most of a town's population will tend to derive their living from manufacturing industry, commerce, and public service rather than primary industry such as agriculture or related activities.

A place's population size is not a reliable determinant of urban character. In many areas of the world, as in India at least until recent times, a large village might contain several times as many people as a small town. In the United Kingdom, there are historical cities that are far smaller than the larger towns.

The modern phenomenon of extensive suburban growth, satellite urban development, and migration of city-dwellers to villages have further complicated the definition of towns, creating communities urban in their economic and cultural characteristics but lacking other characteristics of urban localities.

Some forms of non-rural settlement, such as temporary mining locations, may be clearly non-rural, but have at best a questionable claim to be called a town.

Towns often exist as distinct governmental units, with legally defined borders and some or all of the appurtenances of local government (e.g., a police force). In the United States these are referred to as "incorporated towns". In other cases the town lacks its own governance and is said to be "unincorporated". Note that the existence of an unincorporated town may be legally set forth through other means, as through zoning districts. In the case of some planned communities, the town exists legally in the form of covenants on the properties within the town. The United States Census identifies many census-designated places (CDPs) by the names of unincorporated towns which lie within them; however, those CDPs typically include rural and suburban areas and even surrounding villages and other towns.

The distinction between a town and a city similarly depends on the approach adopted: a city may strictly be an administrative entity which has been granted that designation by law, but in informal usage, the term is also used to denote an urban locality of a particular size or importance: whereas a medieval city may have possessed as few as 10,000 inhabitants, today some consider an urban place of fewer than 100,000 as a town, even though there are many officially designated cities that are very, very much smaller than that.

Age of towns scheme[link]

Australian geographer Thomas Griffith Taylor proposed a classification of towns based on their age and pattern of land use. He identified five types of town:^[1]

• Infantile towns, with no clear zoning
• Juvenile towns, which have developed an area of shops
• Adolescent towns, where factories have started to appear
• Early mature towns, with a separate area of high-class housing
• Mature towns, with defined industrial, commercial and various types of residential area

By country[link]

Australia[link]

In Australia, towns are commonly understood to be centers of population not formally declared to be cities and usually with a population in excess of about 250 people.^{[citation needed]} Centers too small to be called towns are generally understood to be a township.

In addition, local governments are officially styled as towns in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. In Victoria (other states?), localities may be described as a town if they contain a town as described above.

Austria[link]

In Austria, designations are similar to those in Germany with a trichotomy in Gemeinde, Markt(gemeinde) and Stadt. Which translate to "Community", "Market Community" and "City".

Bulgaria[link]

The historic part of Plovdiv, a major town in central Bulgaria.

In Bulgaria the Council of Ministers defines what constitutes a settlement, while the President of Bulgaria grants each settlement its title. In 2005 the requirement that villages that wish to classify themselves as town must have a social and technical infrastructure, as well as a population of no less than 3500 persons. For resort settlements the requirements are lower with the population needing to be no less than 1000 persons but infrastructure requirements remain.

Canada[link]

The legal definition of a town in Canada varies by province or territory, as each has jurisdiction over defining and legislating towns, cities and other types of municipal organization within its own boundaries.

The province of Quebec is unique in that it makes no distinction under law between towns and cities. There is no intermediate level in French between village and ville (municipality is an administrative term usually applied to a legal, not geographical entity), so both are combined under the single legal status of ville. While an informal preference may exist among English speakers as to whether any individual ville is commonly referred to as a city or as a town, no distinction and no objective legal criteria exist to make such a distinction under law.

Chile[link]

In Chile, towns (Spanish: pueblos) are defined by the National Statistics Institute (INE) as an urban entity with a population from 2001 to 5000 or an area with a population from 1001 to 2000 and an established economic activity.

Denmark[link]

In Denmark, no distinction is made between "city", "town" and "village"; all three translate as "by".

For small villages and hamlets, the word "landsby" is used (appropriately. "country town" or "rural town"). For formal purposes, such urban areas having at least 200 inhabitants are counted as "by".^[2]

Historically some towns held various privileges, the most important of which was the right to hold market. They were administered separately from the rural areas in both fiscal, military and legal matters. Such towns are known as "købstad" (roughly the same meaning as "borough" albeit deriving from a different etymology) and they retain the exclusive right to the title even after the last vestiges of their privileges vanished through the reform of the local administration carried through in 1970.

France[link]

The town of Salins-les-Bains, France

From an administrative standpoint, the smallest level of local authorities are all called "communes". However, some laws do treat these authorities differently based on the population and specific rules apply to the three main cities Paris, Lyon and Marseille. For historical reasons, six communes in the Meuse département still exist as independent entities despite having no inhabitant at all.

For statistical purposes, the national statistical institute (INSEE) operates a distinction between urban areas with fewer than 2,000 inhabitants and bigger communes, the latter being called "villes". Smaller settlements are usually called "villages". In any case, the French language does not commonly make a difference between towns and cities.

Germany[link]

Germans do not, in general, differentiate between 'city' and 'town'. The German word for both is Stadt as it is in many other languages that do not make any difference between the Anglo-Saxon concepts. However, the International Statistics Conference of 1887 defined different sizes of Stadt, based on their population size, as follows: Landstadt ("country town"; under 5,000), Kleinstadt ("small town"; 5,000 to under 20,000), Mittelstadt ("middle town"; between 20,000 and 100,000) and Großstadt ("large town"; over 100,000).^[3] The term Großstadt may be translated as "city". In addition, Germans may speak of Millionenstadt, a city with over 1,000,000 inhabitants, or even a Megastadt.

In Germany also the historical importance (many settlements became a Stadt by being awarded a Stadtrecht in medieval times), the centrality and the population density of an urban place might be taken as characteristics of a 'city'. The word for a 'village', as a smaller settlement, is Dorf.

In some German states, the words Markt, Marktflecken (both used in southern Germany) or Flecken (northern Germany e.g. in Lower Saxony) designate a town-like residential community between village and city.

The current local government organization is subject to state law of a state and the related denomination of a specific settlement may differ from its common designation (e.g. Samtgemeinde - a Lower Saxony legal term for a group of villages (Dorf, pl. Dörfer) with common local government). Designations in different states are as diverse as for example in Australian States and Territories and differ from state to state.

Greece and Cyprus[link]

Greeks do not have different words to express 'town' and 'city'. The word they use to say both is πόλη (fem) (póli). Though sometimes (rarely in everyday speech) they use the word κωμόπολη (komópoli) (fem) to refer to a town. For Greeks, a town (komópoli) is a human settlement with a population of 2.000 - 9.999. If a settlement has a lower population, it is considered a village (χωριό, chorjó). For the cities, Greeks, use the word 'póli', whereas for bigger cities with a population above 1 million, they usually use another name, μητρόπολη (mitrópoli), in English Metropolis.

Hong Kong[link]

This section requires expansion.

Almost every town in Hong Kong has its own town hall. The picture shows the Sha Tin Town Hall in the town of Sha Tin.

Hong Kong started developing new towns in the 1950s, to accommodate booming populations. The very first new towns included Tsuen Wan and Kwun Tong. In the late 1960s and the 1970s, another stage of new town developments was launched. Nine new towns have been developed so far. Land use is carefully planned and development provides plenty of room for public housing projects. Rail transport is usually available at a later stage. The first towns are Sha Tin, Tsuen Wan, Tuen Mun and Tseung Kwan O. Tuen Mun was intended to be self-reliant, but was not successful and turned into a bedroom community like the other new towns. More recent developments are Tin Shui Wai and North Lantau (Tung Chung-Tai Ho).

Hungary[link]

Győr

In Hungary, a village can gain the status of "város" (town), if it meets a set of diverse conditions for quality of life and development of certain public services and utilities (e.g. having a local secondary school or installing full-area sewage collection pipe network). Every year the Minister of Internal Affairs selects candidates from a committee-screened list of applicants, whom the President of Republic usually affirms by issuing a bill of town's rank to them. Since being a town carries extra fiscal support from the government, many relatively small villages try to win the status of "városi rang" nowadays.

Before the fall of communism in 1990, Hungarian villages under 10,000 residents were not allowed to become towns. Recently some settlements as small as 2,500 souls have received the rank of town (e.g. Zalakaros or Gönc) and meeting the conditions of development is often disregarded to quickly elevate larger villages into towns. As of early 2007, there are 289 towns in Hungary, encompassing some 65% of the entire population.

Towns of more than 50,000 people are able to gain the status of "megyei jog" (town with the rights of a county), which allows them to maintain own courts and a higher degree of autonomy. As of early 2007, there are only 23 such towns in Hungary.^{[citation needed]}

Iceland[link]

Ireland[link]

The Local Government act 2001 provides that from January 1, 2002 (section 10 subsection (3) Within the county in which they are situated and of which they form part, there continue to be such other local government areas as are set out in Schedule 6 which - (a) in the case of the areas set out in Chapter 1 of Part 1 of that Schedule, shall be known as boroughs, and - (b) in the case of the areas set out in Chapter 2 of Part 1 and Part 2 of that Schedule, shall be known as towns, and in this Act a reference to a town shall include a reference to a borough.

These provisions affect the replacement of the boroughs, Towns and urban districts which existed before then. Similar reforms in the nomenclature of local authorities ( but not their functions) are effected by section 11 part 17 of the act includes provision (section 185(2)) Qualified electors of a town having a population of at least 7,500 as ascertained at the last preceding census or such other figure as the Minister may from time to time prescribe by regulations, and not having a town council, may make a proposal in accordance with paragraph (b) for the establishment of such a council and contains provisions enabling the establishment of new town councils and provisions enabling the dissolution of existing or new town councils in certain circumstances

The reference to town having a population of at least 7,500 as ascertained at the last preceding census hands much of the power relating to defining what is in fact a town over to the Central Statistics Office and their criteria are published as part of each census.

Planning and Development Act 2000

Another reference to the Census and its role in determining what is or is not a town for some administrative purpose is in the Planning and Development act 2000 (part II chapter I which provides for Local area plans)

A local area plan shall be made in respect of an area which —(i) is designated as a town in the most recent census of population, other than a town designated as a suburb or environs in that census, (ii) has a population in excess of 2,000, and (iii) is situated within the functional area of a planning authority which is a county council.

Central Statistics Office Criteria

These are set out in full at http://www.cso.ie/census/documents/census_2006_Appendices.pdf

In short they speak of "towns with legally defined boundaries" ( i.e. those established by the Local Government Act 2001) and the remaining 664 as "census towns", defined by themselves since 1971 as a cluster of 50 or more occupied dwellings in which within a distance of 800 meters there is a nucleus of 30 occupied houses on both sides of the road or twenty occupied houses on one side of the road there is also a 200 meter criterion for determining whether a house is part of a census town.

India[link]

In India, under most state laws, no village or settlement can be classified as a town unless its population crosses 20,000 inhabitants. On the basis of population and other issues, the state government notifies a larger community (over 10,000) as a notified area, and its administration is under the locally elected notified area committee. A settlement over 20,000 population would be classified, with a charter from the state government as a town, with a town area committee. Some laws distinguish only towns and villages from each other, but by usage, settlement with larger populations, such as those having a municipal committee or municipal corporation would be called cities. The recent Census of India classified all settlements above 5000 population subject to some other rules as urban areas for the sake of census.In the Census of India 2001, the definition of urban area adopted is as follows: (a) All statutory places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee, etc. (b) A place satisfying the following three criteria simultaneously: i) a minimum population of 5,000; ii) at least 75 per cent of male working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits; and iii) a density of population of at least 400 per km². (1,000 per sq. mile).^[4]

Iran[link]

Shahrak-e Gharb, an example of shahrak in Iran.

In contemporary Persian texts, no distinction is made between "city" and "town"; both translate as "Shahr" (شهر). In older Persian texts (until the first half of the 20th century), the Arabic word "Qasabeh" (قصبه) was used for a town. However, in recent 50 years, this word has become obsolete.

There is a word in Persian which is used for special sort of satellite townships and city neighborhoods. It is Shahrak (شهرک), (lit.: small city). Another smaller type of town or neighborhood in a big city is called Kuy (کوی). Shahrak and Kuy each have their different legal definitions. Large cities such as Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Tabriz, etc. which have millions of populations are referred to as Kalan-shahrکلان‌شهر (metropole).

The pace in which different large villages have gained city status in Iran shows a dramatic increase in the last two decades.

Bigger cities and towns usually are centers of a township (in Persian: Shahrestan (شهرستان). Shahrestan itself is a subdivision of Ostan استان (Province).

Latvia[link]

In Latvia, towns and cities are indiscriminately called pilsēta in singular form. The name is a contraction of two Latvian words: pils (castle) and sēta (fence), making it very obvious what is meant by the word - what is situated between the castle and the castle fence. However, a city can be called lielpilsēta in reference to its size. A village is called ciemats or ciems in Latvian.

Lithuania[link]

In Lithuania, towns are named miestelis or miestas. Cities are named didmiestis. Villages are named kaimas or vienkiemis.

Netherlands[link]

In the Netherlands, no distinction is made between "city" and "town"; both translate as "stad".

Before 1848 there was a legal distinction between stad and non-stad parts of the country, but the word no longer has any legal significance. About 220 places got "stadsrechten" (city rights) and are still so called for historical and traditional reasons, though the word is also used for large urban areas that never got such rights. For example, The Hague, the third largest settlement of the country, never received official city rights, but is undoubtedly regarded as a city. The contrastive word for a village as a smaller settlement is dorp.

New Zealand[link]

In New Zealand, a town is a built-up area that is not large enough to be considered a city. Historically, this definition corresponded to a population of between approximately 1,000 and 20,000. Towns have no independent legal existence, being administered simply as built-up parts of districts, or, in some cases, of cities.

New Zealand's towns vary greatly in size and importance, ranging from small rural service centres to significant regional centres such as Blenheim and Taupo. Typically, once a town reaches a population of somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 people, it will begin to be informally regarded as a city. One who regards a settlement as too small to be a town will typically call it a "township" or "village."

Poland[link]

Similarly to Germany, in Poland there is no official distinction between a city and a town. The word for both is miasto (as distinct from a village or wieś). Town status is conferred by administrative decree – some settlements remain villages even though they have a larger population than many smaller towns.

Portugal[link]

Like other Iberian languages, in Portuguese there is a traditional distinction between towns — vilas — and cities — cidades. The difference is defined by law,^[5] and a town must have:

• at least 3,000 inhabitants
• at least half of these services:
  • health unit
  • pharmacy
  • cultural center
  • public transportation network
  • post office
  • commercial food and drinking establishments
  • primary school
  • bank office

In special cases, some villages may be granted the status of town if they possess historical, cultural or architectonic importance.

The Portuguese urban settlements heraldry reflects the difference between towns and cities,^[6] with the coat of arms of a town bearing a crown with 4 towers, while the coat of arms of a city bears a crown with 5 towers. This difference between towns and cities is still in use in other Portuguese speaking countries, but in Brazil is no longer in use.

Russia[link]

Unlike English, the Russian language does not distinguish the terms "city" and "town"—both are translated as "город" (gorod). Traditionally, the term "city" is applied to large metropolitan areas and the term "town"—to smaller urban localities. Occasionally the term is applied to urban-type settlements as well, even though the status of those is not the same as that of a city/town proper.

In Russia, the criteria an inhabited locality needs to meet in order to be granted city/town (gorod) status vary in different federal subjects. In general, to qualify for this status, an inhabited locality should have more than 12,000 inhabitants and the occupation of no less than 85% of inhabitants must be other than agriculture. However, inhabited localities which were previously granted the city/town status but no longer meet the criteria can still retain the status for historical reasons.

Sweden[link]

Before 1971, 132 larger municipalities in Sweden enjoyed special royal charters as stad (town) instead of kommun (which is similar to a US county). But since 1971 all municipalities are officially defined as kommun, thus making no legal difference between, for instance, Stockholm and a small countryside municipality. However, every urban area that was a stad before 1971 is still a called stad in daily speech, and since the 1980s, 14 of these municipalities market themselves as stad again, although it has no legal or administrative significance, as they still have refer to themselves as kommun in all legal documentation.

Today, Statistics Sweden defines a stad as an urban area of at least 10,000 inhabitants. In the Swedish language the term for a city is storstad (big town), but there is no clear definition as to when a stad should be called a storstad. Most Swedes would only call Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö storstäder, i.e. "cities".

Ukraine[link]

Street in a large Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk

There is no difference in the Ukrainian language between the notions of "town" and "city". Both these words are translated into Ukrainian as "місто" (misto). The smallest population of a city of Ukraine can be about 10,000. Cities/towns should be distinguished from urban-type settlements ("селище міського типу", selyshche mis'koho typu; informally "містечко", mistechko), which, although urban in nature, do not have a city status. As a rule, the population of an urban-type settlement is between 2,000 and 10,000.

United Kingdom[link]

England and Wales[link]

A traditional English town center at Rugby

In England and Wales, a town traditionally was a settlement which had a charter to hold a market or fair and therefore became a "market town". Market towns were distinguished from villages in that they were the economic hub of a surrounding area, and were usually larger and had more facilities.

In modern usage the term town is used either for old market towns, or for settlements which have a town council, or for settlements which elsewhere would be classed a city, but which do not have the legal right to call themselves such. Any parish council can decide to describe itself as a town council, but this will usually only apply to the smallest "towns" (because larger towns will be larger than a single civil parish).

Not all settlements which are commonly described as towns have a "Town Council" or "Borough Council". In fact, because of many successive changes to the structure of local government, there are now few large towns which are represented by a body closely related to their historic borough council. These days, a smaller town will usually be part of a local authority which covers several towns. And where a larger town is the seat of a local authority, the authority will usually cover a much wider area than the town itself (either a large rural hinterland, or several other, smaller towns).

Additionally, there are "new towns" which were created during the 20th century, such as Basildon, Redditch and Telford. Milton Keynes was designed to be a "new city" but legally it is still a town despite its size.

Some settlements which describe themselves as towns (e.g. Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire) are smaller than some large villages (e.g. Kidlington, Oxfordshire).

The status of a city is reserved for places that have Letters Patent entitling them to the name, historically associated with the possession of a cathedral. Some large municipalities (such as Northampton and Bournemouth) are legally boroughs but not cities, whereas some cities are quite small — such as Ely or St David's for instance.

It appears that a city may become a town, though perhaps only through administrative error: Rochester (Kent) has been a city for centuries but, when in 1998 the Medway district was created, a bureaucratic blunder meant that Rochester lost its official city status and is now technically a town.

It is often thought that towns with bishops' seats rank automatically as cities: however, Chelmsford was until recently a town despite being the seat of the diocese of Chelmsford. St Asaph, which is the seat of the diocese of St Asaph, also only recently became a city. In reality, the pre-qualification of having a cathedral of the established Church of England, and the formerly established Church in Wales or Church of Ireland, ceased to apply from 1888.

The word town can also be used as a general term for urban areas, including cities and in a few cases, districts within cities. In this usage, a city is a type of town; a large one, with a certain status. For example, Greater London is sometimes referred to colloquially as "London town". (The "City of London" is the historical nucleus, informally known as the "Square Mile", and is administratively separate from the rest of Greater London, while the City of Westminster is also technically a city and is also a London borough). Camden Town and Somers Town are districts of London, as New Town is a district of Edinburgh - actually the Georgian centre.

Scotland[link]

A town in Scotland has no specific legal meaning and (especially in areas which were or are still Gaelic-speaking) can refer to a mere collection of buildings (e.g. a farm-town or in Scots ferm-toun), not all of which might be inhabited, or to an inhabited area of any size which is not otherwise described in terms such as city, burgh, etc. Many locations of greatly different size will be encountered with a name ending with -town, -ton, -toun etc. (or beginning with the Gaelic equivalent baile etc.).

A burgh (pronounced burruh) is the Scots' term for a town or a municipality. They were highly autonomous units of local government from at least the 12th century until their abolition in 1975, when a new regional structure of local government was introduced across the country. Usually based upon a town, they had a municipal corporation and certain rights, such as a degree of self-governance and representation in the sovereign Parliament of Scotland adjourned in 1707.

The term no longer describes units of local government although various claims are made from time to time that the legislation used was not competent to change the status of the Royal Burghs described below. The status is now chiefly ceremonial but various functions have been inherited by current Councils (e.g. the application of various endowments providing for public benefit) which might only apply within the area previously served by a burgh; in consequence a burgh can still exist (if only as a defined geographical area) and might still be signed as such by the current local authority. It should be noted that the word 'burgh' is generally not used as a synonym for 'town' or 'city' in everyday speech, but is reserved mostly for government and administrative purposes.

Historically, the most important burghs were royal burghs, followed by burghs of regality and burghs of barony. Some newer settlements were only designated as police burghs from the 19th century onward, a classification which also applies to most of the older burghs.

United States[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2007)

The tiny farming community of Wyatt, Indiana

In the United States of America, the term "town" refers to an area of population distinct from others in some meaningful dimension, typically population or type of government. The characteristic that distinguishes a town from another type of populated place – a city, borough, village, or township, for example – can differ from state to state. In some states, a town is an incorporated municipality; that is, one with a charter received from the state, similar to a city (see incorporated town), while in others, a town is unincorporated. In some instances, the term "town" refers to a small incorporated municipality of less than 10,000 people, while in others a town can be significantly larger. Some states do not use the term "town" at all, while in others the term has no official meaning and is used informally to refer to a populated place, of any size, whether incorporated or unincorporated.

Since the use of the term varies considerably by state, individual usages are presented in the following sections:

Alabama[link]

In Alabama, the legal use of the terms "town" and "city" are based on population. A municipality with a population of 2,000 or more is a city, while less than 2,000 is a town (Code of Alabama 1975, Section 11-40-6). For legislative purposes, municipalities are divided into eight classes based on population. Class 8 includes all towns, plus cities with populations of less than 6,000 (Code of Alabama 1975, Section 11-40-12).

Arizona[link]

In Arizona, the terms "town" and "city" are largely interchangeable. A community may incorporate under either a town or a city organization with no regard to population or other restrictions according to Arizona law (see Arizona Revised Statutes, Title 9). Cities may function under slightly differing governmental systems, such as the option to organize a district system for city governments, but largely retain the same powers as towns. Arizona law also allows for the consolidation of neighboring towns and the unification of a city and a town, but makes no provision for the joining of two adjacent cities.

California[link]

In California, the words "town" and "city" are synonymous by law (see Cal. Govt. Code Secs. 34500-34504). There are two types of cities in California - charter and general law. Cities organized as charter cities derive their authority from a charter that they draft and file with the state, and which, among other things, states the municipality's name as "City of (Name)" or "Town of (Name)." Government Code Sections 34500-34504 applies to cities organized as general law cities, which differ from charter cities in that they do not have charters but instead operate with the powers conferred them by the pertinent sections of the Government Code. Like charter cities, general law cities may incorporate as "City of (Name)" or "Town of (Name)." Some cities change their minds as to how they want to be called. The sign in front of the municipal offices in Los Gatos, California, for example, reads "City of Los Gatos", but the words engraved on the building above the front entrance when the city hall was built read "Town of Los Gatos." There are also signs at the municipal corporation limit, some of which welcome visitors to the "City of Los Gatos" while older, adjacent signs welcome people to the "Town of Los Gatos." Meanwhile, the village does not exist in California as a municipal corporation. Instead, the word "town" is commonly used to indicate any unincorporated community that might otherwise be known as an unincorporated village. Additionally, some people may still use the word "town" as shorthand for "township", which is not an incorporated municipality but an administrative division of a county.

Hawaii[link]

The Hawaiian Island of Oahu has various communities that may be referred to as towns. However, the entire island is lumped as a single incorporated city, the City and County of Honolulu. The towns on Oahu are merely unincorporated census-designated places.

Illinois[link]

In Illinois, the word "town" has been used both to denote a subdivision of a county called a township,^[7] and to denote a form of municipality similar to a village, in that it is generally governed by a president and trustees rather than a mayor.^[8] Under the current Illinois Municipal Code, an incorporated or unincorporated town may choose to incorporate as a city or as a village, but other forms of incorporation are no longer allowed.^[9]

Maryland[link]

While generally a "town" is usually considered a smaller entity than a city, legally they are exactly the same as far as Maryland law is concerned. With the exception of the Independent city of Baltimore (which is a special case), in Maryland, there is no difference between a "city" and a "town," it is simply part of the name that was chosen to designate an incorporated municipality. It's essentially the same as a corporate business entity choosing to have a name with "incorporated" or with "corporation", both terms mean the same thing.

Nevada[link]

In Nevada, a town has a form of government, but is not considered to be incorporated. It generally provides a limited range of services, such as land use planning and recreation, while leaving most services to the county. Many communities have found this "semi-incorporated" status attractive; the state has only 20 incorporated cities, and towns as large as Paradise (186,020 in 2000 Census), home of the Las Vegas Strip. Most county seats are also towns, not cities.

New England[link]

In the six New England states, a town is a municipality and a more important unit than the county. In Connecticut, Rhode Island and 7 out of 14 counties in Massachusetts, in fact, counties only exist as map divisions and have no legal functions; in the other three states, counties are primarily judicial districts, with other functions primarily in New Hampshire and Vermont. In all six, towns perform functions that in most states would be county functions. The defining feature of a New England town, as opposed to a city, is that a town meeting and a board of selectmen serve as the main form of government for a town, while cities are run by a mayor and a city council. For example, Brookline, Massachusetts is a town, even though it is fairly urban, because of its form of government.

New Jersey[link]

A Town in the context of New Jersey local government refers to one of five types and one of eleven forms of municipal government. While Town is often used as a shorthand to refer to a Township, the two are not the same. The Town Act of 1895 allowed any municipality or area with a population exceeding 5,000 to become a Town through a petition and referendum process. Under the 1895 Act, a newly incorporated town was divided into at least three wards, with two councilmen per ward serving staggered two year terms, and one councilman at large, who also served a two year term. The councilman at large served as chairman of the town council. The Town Act of 1988 completely revised the Town form of government and applied to all towns incorporated under the Town Act of 1895 and to those incorporated by a special charter granted by the Legislature prior to 1875. Under the 1988 Act, the mayor is also the councilman at large, serving a term of two years, unless increased to three years by a petition and referendum process. The Council under the Town Act of 1988 consists of eight members serving staggered two-year terms with two elected from each of four wards. One councilman from each ward is up for election each year. Towns with different structures predating the 1988 Act may retain those features unless changed by a petition and referendum process. Two new provisions were added in 1991 to the statutes governing towns, First, a petition and referendum process was created whereby the voters can require that the mayor and town council be elected to four-year terms of office. The second new provision defines the election procedure in towns with wards. The mayor in a town chairs the town council and heads the municipal government. The mayor may both vote on legislation before council and veto ordinances. A veto may be overridden by a vote of two-thirds of all the members of the council. The council may enact an ordinance to delegate all or a portion of the executive responsibilities of the town to a municipal administrator. Fifteen New Jersey municipalities currently have a type of Town, nine of which operate under the town form of government.

New York[link]

In New York, a town is similarly a division of the county, but with less importance than in New England. Of some importance is the fact that, in New York, a town provides a closer level of governance than its enclosing county, providing almost all municipal services to unincorporated areas, called hamlets, and selected services to incorporated areas, called villages. In New York, a town typically contains a number of such hamlets and villages. However, due to their independent nature, incorporated villages may exist in two towns or even two counties. Everyone in New York who does not live in an Indian reservation or a city lives in a town and possibly in one of the town's hamlets or villages. (Some other states have similar entities called townships.) In New York, "town" is essentially short for "township."

North Carolina[link]

In North Carolina, all cities, towns, and villages are incorporated as municipalities. According to the North Carolina League of Municipalities,^[10] there is no legal distinction between a city, town, or village—it is a matter of preference of the local government. Some North Carolina cities have populations as small as 1,000 residents, while some towns, such as Cary, have populations of greater than 100,000.

Pennsylvania[link]

In Pennsylvania, there is only one municipality which is incorporated as a "town": Bloomsburg. Most of the rest of the state is incorporated as townships (there are also boroughs and cities), which function in much the same way as the towns of New York or New England, although they may have different forms of government.

Utah[link]

In Utah, the legal use of the terms "town" and "city" is based on population. A municipality with a population of 1,000 or more is a city, while less than 1,000 is a town. In addition, cities are divided into five separate classes based on population.^[11] Utah code governing the requirements for cities and town including the requirements for each separate class of city can be found at the Utah Legislature website.

Virginia[link]

In Virginia, a town is an incorporated municipality similar to a city (though with a smaller required minimum population). But while cities are by Virginia law independent of counties, towns are contained within counties.^[12]

Wyoming[link]

Wyoming statute indicates towns are incorporated municipalities with populations of less than 4,000. Municipalities of 4,000 or more residents are considered "first-class cities."

According to 2006-2008 United States Census estimates, the Hempstead, New York (the westernmost town in Long Island, New York) is the largest town in the United States, with a population of almost 780,000 people,^[13] making it larger than the cities of Boston or Seattle.

See also[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Australian Bureau of Statistics: Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) 2005

External links[link]

Look up town in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Open-Site Regional — Contains information about towns in numerous countries.
• Geopolis : research group, university of Paris-Diderot, France — Access to Geopolis Database

Shinji Kagawa
香川真司

Kagawa with Borussia Dortmund in 2011
Personal information
Full name	Shinji Kagawa
Date of birth	(1989-03-17) 17 March 1989 (age 23)
Place of birth	Kobe, Japan
Height	1.72 m (5 ft 7 1⁄2 in)[1]
Playing position	Attacking Midfielder Winger
Club information
Current club	Borussia Dortmund
Number	23
Youth career
2001–2005	FC Miyagi
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
2006–2010	Cerezo Osaka	125	(55)
2010–	Borussia Dortmund	49	(21)
National team‡
2006–2008	Japan U19[2]	4	(0)
2007	Japan U20[2]	2	(0)
2008	Japan U23[2]	3	(0)
2008–	Japan	30	(10)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 5 May 2012 (UTC). † Appearances (Goals). ‡ National team caps and goals correct as of 30 November 2011

Shinji Kagawa (香川 真司, Kagawa Shinji^?) (born 17 March 1989) is a Japanese footballer who plays for Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund in Germany and Japanese national football team.

Club career[link]

Kagawa started playing football in his primary school years. He joined Kobe NK Football Club from 1999 to 2001, and FC Miyagi Barcelona in Sendai from 2001 to 2005.^[3] Cerezo Osaka noticed his talent and signed him at the age of 17. He was the first player in Japan to sign a professional contract before graduating high school, except players promoted from youth teams of the J. League clubs.^[4] In 2007, he gained a regular position but the club missed the promotion to the J. League Division 1.

By mid-2010, Kagawa was represented with a sports agency run by retired German professional footballer Thomas Kroth, which ultimately handled his transfer to Borussia Dortmund.

Borussia Dortmund[link]

2010–11[link]

Kagawa celebrates winning the Bundesliga with Borussia Dortmund in 2011

In the summer of 2010, Kagawa transferred from Cerezo to Borussia Dortmund for €350,000. The relatively modest cost of the transfer was because of a release clause in Kagawa's contract with Cerezo, which allowed him to leave the club cheaply if he had an opportunity to play in Europe.^[5]

On 23 August 2010, he made his debut appearance in the German Bundesliga, starting for his new club Borussia Dortmund. After scoring his first two competitive goals for the club in the Europa League qualifying tie against Qarabağ, he continued this form with his first goal in the Bundesliga match against Wolfsburg, which Dortmund won 2–0.^[6] In the Revierderby against archrival Schalke 04, which Dortmund won 3–1, Kagawa said pre-match that he would score two goals, he then went on to score twice, making him one of the fans' favorites.^[7]

Kagawa missed half of the Bundesliga season because of an injury he picked up on international duty, but managed to score eight goals in 18 appearances. His strong effort in the first half of the season helped his side finish as champions of the Bundesliga and he was even named in the Bundesliga Best XI.^[8]

2011–12[link]

Kagawa was back in time for the start of the 2011–12 Bundesliga campaign and quickly found his way back into the starting line-up. Kagawa scored his first goal of the new Bundesliga season on 18 September, coming in a disappointing 2–1 loss to Hannover 96, as Dortmund gave up two goals in the last three minutes.^[9] On 22 October, Kagawa opened the scoring in the seventh minute as Dortmund crushed 1. FC Köln 5–0 in front of 80,200 home fans at the Signal Iduna Park.^[10] Kagawa scored again on 5 November, as Dortmund brushed aside Wolfsburg 5–1 and moved within two points of league leaders Bayern Munich. Kagawa scored a late consolation against Arsenal in a 2–1 loss in the group stage of the Champions League.

On 28 January 2012, Kagawa scored twice in Dortmund's 3–1 win against Hoffenheim. Kagawa scored the only goal of the game against Werder Bremen on 17 March, heading in a pass from İlkay Gündoğan in the eighth minute.^[11] Kagawa scored two goals in Dortmund's 6–1 thrashing of Cologne on 25 March, keeping Dortmund five points ahead of Bayern in the title race.^[12] Kagawa also scored a goal and provided an assist for Borussia Dortmund, against rivals Bayern Munich in the 2011–12 DFB-Pokal Final.

International career[link]

Kagawa played as a member of the Japan national under-20 football team in the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup held in Canada.^[13]

In 2008 he was also selected to play as a member of the Japanese team for the 2008 Summer Olympics.^[14] On 24 May 2008 he made his senior international debut in a friendly Kirin Cup match. Japan won the match against Côte d'Ivoire 1–0. He was not selected in Takeshi Okada's final 23 squad for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. In September 2010 he scored the only goal of the game in Japan's 1–0 win over Paraguay in Yokohama.^[15] It took Kagawa five months to rehab his injury from the AFC Asia Cup. He returned in Dortmund's final game as a substitute in the 87th minute.

2011 AFC Asian Cup[link]

He was included in the 2011 AFC Asian Cup by coach Alberto Zaccheroni.^[16] In the quarterfinals against Qatar, he scored two goals. The game ended 3–2, a win for Japan.^[17] In the semi-final against South Korea, Kagawa broke his metatarsal bone^[18] and missed the final where Japan beat Australia after extra-time.

Career statistics[link]

Club[link]

Statistics accurate as of match played 12 May 2012^[19][20]

¹Includes Emperor's Cup and DFB-Pokal.

²Includes UEFA Europa League qualification, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Champions League.

³Includes J. League Cup and DFL-Supercup.

International[link]

As of 29 February 2012

National team Year Apps Goals Japan U18 2007 3 1 Japan U19 2006 2 0 2008 6 2 Total 8 2 Japan U20 2007 6 0 Japan U23 2008 6 1 Japan 2008 6 1 2009 4 1 2010 7 1 2011 11 6 2012 2 1 Total 30 10

International appearances and goals # Date Venue Opponent Result Goal Competition 2006 2 November Sree Kanteerava Stadium, Bangalore Iran U19 1–2 0 2006 AFC Youth Championship / Japan U19 9 November Yuva Bharati Krirangan, Kolkata South Korea U19 2–2 0 2006 AFC Youth Championship / Japan U19 2007 17 January Valentine Sports Park, Sydney China PR U18 5–0 1 2007 Australian Youth Olympic Festival / Japan U18 18 January Valentine Sports Park, Sydney Australia U18 3–3 0 2007 Australian Youth Olympic Festival / Japan U18 20 January Valentine Sports Park, Sydney South Korea U17 0–1 0 2007 Australian Youth Olympic Festival / Japan U18 22 March Estadio do Moura Atletico Clube, Moura Jordan U20 0–1 0 Friendly[21] / Japan U20 24 March Estádio Municipal 25 de Abril, Penafiel Cape Verde U20 2–1 0 Friendly[21] / Japan U20 25 March Complexo Desportivo Fernando Mamede, Beja Portugal U20 0–3 0 Friendly[21] / Japan U20 2 June Stade Perruc, Hyères France U21 1–5 0 2007 Toulon Tournament / Japan U20 7 July Royal Athletic Park, Victoria Nigeria U20 0–0 0 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup / Japan U20 11 July Royal Athletic Park, Victoria Czech Republic U20 2–2 0 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup / Japan U20 2008 21 January Qatar SC Stadium, Doha Egypt U19 3–0 1 2008 Qatar International Friendship Tournament / Japan U19 23 January Qatar SC Stadium, Doha Germany U19 4–2 1 2008 Qatar International Friendship Tournament / Japan U19 28 January Qatar SC Stadium, Doha China PR U19 2–1 0 2008 Qatar International Friendship Tournament / Japan U19 30 January Qatar SC Stadium, Doha Poland U19 6–1 0 2008 Qatar International Friendship Tournament / Japan U19 27 March National Olympic Stadium, Tokyo  Angola 1–1 0 Friendly[22] / Japan U23 1. 24 May Toyota Stadium, Toyota  Côte d'Ivoire 1–0 0 2008 Kirin Cup 2. 2 June International Stadium Yokohama, Yokohama  Oman 3–0 0 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification 3. 14 June Rajamangala Stadium, Bangkok  Thailand 3–0 0 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification 24 July Home's Stadium Kobe, Hyogo Australia U23 (Olympic) 2–1 1 Friendly[23] / Japan U23 (Olympic) 29 July National Olympic Stadium, Tokyo Argentine U23 (Olympic) 0–1 0 Friendly[24] / Japan U23 (Olympic) 7 August Tianjin Olympic Center Stadium, Tianjin United States U23 (Olympic) 0–1 0 2008 Summer Olympics / Japan U23 (Olympic) 10 August Tianjin Olympic Center Stadium, Tianjin Nigeria U23 (Olympic) 1–2 0 2008 Summer Olympics / Japan U23 (Olympic) 13 August Shenyang Olympic Stadium, Shenyang Netherlands U23 (Olympic) 0–1 0 2008 Summer Olympics / Japan U23 (Olympic) 4. 9 October Niigata Stadium, Niigata  United Arab Emirates 1–1 1 Friendly[25] 5. 15 October Saitama Stadium 2002, Saitama  Uzbekistan 1–1 0 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification 2 November Prince Mohamed bin Fahd Stadium, Dammam Iran U19 4–2 0 2008 AFC U-19 Championship / Japan U19 4 November Prince Mohamed bin Fahd Stadium, Dammam Saudi Arabia U19 1–1 0 2008 AFC U-19 Championship / Japan U19 6. 13 November Home's Stadium Kobe, Hyogo  Syria 3–1 0 Friendly[26] 2009 7. 20 January KKWing Stadium, Kumamoto  Yemen 2–1 0 2011 AFC Asian Cup qualification 8. 28 January Bahrain National Stadium, Isa Town  Bahrain 0–1 0 2011 AFC Asian Cup qualification 9. 4 February National Olympic Stadium, Tokyo  Finland 5–1 1 Friendly[27] 10. 27 May Nagai Stadium, Osaka  Chile 4–0 0 2009 Kirin Cup 2010 11. 2 February Ōita Stadium, Oita  Venezuela 0–0 0 Friendly[28] 12. 11 February National Olympic Stadium, Tokyo  Hong Kong 3–0 0 2010 East Asian Football Championship 13. 14 February National Olympic Stadium, Tokyo  South Korea 1–3 0 2010 East Asian Football Championship 14. 4 September International Stadium Yokohama, Yokohama  Paraguay 1–0 1 Friendly[29] 15. 7 September Nagai Stadium, Osaka  Guatemala 2–1 0 Friendly[30] 16. 8 October Saitama Stadium 2002, Saitama  Argentina 1–0 0 Friendly[31] 17. 12 October Seoul World Cup Stadium, Seoul  South Korea 0–0 0 Friendly[32] 2011 18. 9 January Qatar SC Stadium, Doha  Jordan 1–1 0 2011 AFC Asian Cup 19. 13 January Qatar SC Stadium, Doha  Syria 2–1 0 2011 AFC Asian Cup 20. 17 January Ahmed bin Ali Stadium, Al Rayyan  Saudi Arabia 5–0 0 2011 AFC Asian Cup 21. 21 January Al-Gharafa Stadium, Doha  Qatar 3–2 2 2011 AFC Asian Cup 22. 25 January Al-Gharafa Stadium, Doha  South Korea 2–2 0 2011 AFC Asian Cup 23. 10 August Sapporo Dome, Sapporo  South Korea 3–0 2 Friendly[33] 24. 2 September Saitama Stadium 2002, Saitama  North Korea 1–0 0 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification 25. 7 September Pakhtakor Markaziy Stadium, Tashkent  Uzbekistan 1–1 0 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification 26. 7 October Home's Stadium Kobe, Kobe  Vietnam 1–0 0 Friendly 27. 11 October Nagai Stadium, Osaka  Tajikistan 8–0 2 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification 28. 11 November Pamir Stadium, Dushanbe  Tajikistan 4–0 0 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification 2012 29. 29 February Toyota Stadium, Toyota  Uzbekistan 0–1 0 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification 30. 23 May Shizuoka Stadium, Fukuroi  Azerbaijan 2–0 1 Friendly

Honours[link]

Club[link]

Borussia Dortmund

• Bundesliga (2): 2010–11, 2011–12
• DFB-Pokal (1): 2011–12

Japan[link]

• AFC Asian Cup: 2011

Individual[link]

• J. League Division 2 Top scorer (1): 2009
• Kicker's Bundesliga Team of the Season : 2010–11
• European Sports Media's European Team of the Season : 2011-12

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Shinji Kagawa at Borussia Dortmund official site
• Shinji Kagawa – FIFA competition record
• Shinji Kagawa – UEFA competition record
• Shinji Kagawa at National-Football-Teams.com
• Shinji Kagawa career stats at Soccerbase
• ESPN Soccernet Profile
• Transfermarkt Profile

Japan Squad v t e Japan squad – 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup 1 Hayashi 2 Uchida 3 Yasuda 4 Fukumoto 5 Makino 6 Morishige 7 Umesaki 8 Tanaka 9 Kawahara 10 Kashiwagi 11 Havenaar 12 Morishima 13 Yanagawa 14 Aoki 15 Aoyama 16 Fujita 17 Ota 18 Takeda 19 Hirashige 20 Kagawa 21 Kirihata Coach: Yoshida v t e Japan squad – 2008 Summer Olympics 1 Nishikawa 2 Hosogai 3 Yoshida 4 Mizumoto 5 Nagatomo 6 Morishige 7 Uchida 8 K. Honda 9 Toyoda 10 Kajiyama 11 Okazaki 12 Taniguchi 13 Yasuda 14 Kagawa 15 Morimoto 16 T. Honda 17 Lee 18 Yamamoto Coach: Sorimachi v t e Japan squad – 2011 AFC Asian Cup Champions (4th Title) 1 Kawashima 2 Inoha 3 Iwamasa 4 Konno 5 Nagatomo 6 Uchida 7 Endō 8 Matsui 9 Okazaki 10 Kagawa 11 Maeda 12 Moriwaki 13 Hosogai 14 Fujimoto 15 T. Honda 16 Kashiwagi 17 Hasebe (c) 18 K. Honda 19 Lee 20 Nagata 21 Nishikawa 22 Yoshida 23 Gonda Coach: Zaccheroni

James Taylor
Taylor in April 2011
Background information
Birth name	James Vernon Taylor
Born	(1948-03-12) March 12, 1948 (age 64) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Origin	Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Genres	Folk rock, rock, pop, soft rock, country
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, harmonica[1]
Years active	1966–present
Labels	Apple, Capitol, EMI, Warner Bros., Columbia, SME, Hear Music
Associated acts	Carole King, Carly Simon, Eric Clapton, Joe Walsh
Website	www.jamestaylor.com

James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.

Taylor achieved his major breakthrough in 1970 with the #3 single "Fire and Rain" and had his first #1 hit the following year with "You've Got a Friend", a recording of Carole King's classic song. His 1976 Greatest Hits album was certified Diamond and has sold 12 million US copies. Following his 1977 album, JT, he has retained a large audience over the decades. His commercial achievements declined slightly until a big resurgence during the late 1990s and 2000s, when some of his best-selling and most-awarded albums (including Hourglass, October Road and Covers) were released.

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

James Taylor was born at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 12, 1948, where his father, Isaac M. Taylor, was a resident physician.^[2][3] His father was from a well-off family of Southern Scottish ancestry.^[2] His mother, the former Gertrude Woodard, had studied singing with Marie Sundelius at the New England Conservatory of Music and was an aspiring opera singer before the couple's marriage in 1946.^[2][4] James was the second of five children, the others being Alex (1947-1993), Kate (born 1949), Livingston (born 1950), and Hugh (born 1952).^[5]

In 1951, when James was three years old, the family moved to what was then the countryside of Chapel Hill, North Carolina,^[6] when Isaac took a job as Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.^[7] They built a house in the Morgan Creek area off of what is now Morgan Creek Road, which was sparsely populated.^[8] James would later say, "Chapel Hill, the Piedmont, the outlying hills, were tranquil, rural, beautiful, but quiet. Thinking of the red soil, the seasons, the way things smelled down there, I feel as though my experience of coming of age there was more a matter of landscape and climate than people."^[8] James attended public primary school in Chapel Hill.^[2] Isaac's career prospered, but he was frequently away from home, either on military service at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland or as part of Operation Deep Freeze in Antarctica during 1955–1956.^[9] Isaac Taylor later rose to become Dean of the UNC School of Medicine from 1964 to 1971.^[10] The family spent summers on Martha's Vineyard beginning in 1953.^[11]

Taylor first learned to play the cello as a child in North Carolina, and switched to the guitar in 1960.^[12] His style on that instrument evolved from listening to hymns, carols, and Woody Guthrie, while his technique derived from his bass clef-oriented cello training and from experimenting on his sister Kate's keyboards: "My style was a finger-picking style that was meant to be like a piano, as if my thumb were my left hand, and my first, second, and third fingers were my right hand."^[13] He began attending Milton Academy, a prep boarding school in Massachusetts in Fall 1961; summering before then with his family on Martha's Vineyard, he met Danny Kortchmar, an aspiring teenage guitarist from Larchmont, New York.^[14] The two began listening to and playing blues and folk music together, and Kortchmar quickly realized that Taylor's singing had a "natural sense of phrasing, every syllable beautifully in time. I knew James had that thing."^[15] Taylor wrote his first song on guitar at age 14, and continued to learn the instrument effortlessly.^[13] By the summer of 1963, he and Kortchmar were playing coffeehouses around the Vineyard, billed as "Jamie & Kootch".^[16]

Taylor faltered during his junior year at Milton, not feeling at ease in the high-pressured college prep environment despite having good scholastic performance.^[17] The Milton principal would later say, "James was more sensitive and less goal oriented than most students of his day."^[18] He returned home to North Carolina to finish out the semester at Chapel Hill High School.^[17] There he joined a band his brother Alex had formed called The Corsayers (later The Fabulous Corsairs), playing electric guitar; in 1964 they cut a single in Raleigh that featured James's song "Cha Cha Blues" on the B-side.^[17] Having lost touch with his former school friends in North Carolina, Taylor returned to Milton for his senior year.^[17]

There, Taylor started applying to colleges,^[19] but soon descended into depression; his grades collapsed, he slept twenty hours a day, and he felt part of a "life that I [was] unable to lead."^[17][20] In late 1965 he committed himself to the renowned McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts,^[17] where he was treated with Thorazine and where the organized days began to give him a sense of time and structure.^[18][20] As the Vietnam War built up, Taylor received a psychological rejection from Selective Service System when he appeared before them with two white-suited McLean assistants and was uncommunicative.^[21] Taylor earned a high school diploma in 1966 from the hospital's associated Arlington School.^[21] He would later view his nine-month stay at McLean as "a lifesaver ... like a pardon or like a reprieve,"^[20] and both his brother Livingston and sister Kate would later be patients and students there as well.^[18] As for his mental health struggles, Taylor would think of them as innate, and say: "It's an inseparable part of my personality that I have these feelings."^[19]

1966–1969: Early career[link]

Taylor checked himself out of McLean and, at Kortchmar's urging, moved to New York City to form a band.^[21] They recruited Joel O'Brien, formerly of Kortchmar's old band The King Bees, to play drums, and Taylor's childhood friend Zachary Wiesner (son of noted academic Jerome Wiesner) to play bass, and – after Taylor rejected the notion of naming the group after him – called themselves The Flying Machine.^[18][22] They played songs that Taylor had written at and about McLean, such as "Knocking 'Round the Zoo", "Don't Talk Now", and "The Blues Is Just a Bad Dream".^[20][22] In some other songs, Taylor romanticized his life, although he was plagued by self-doubt.^[23] By summer 1966 they were performing regularly at the high-visibility Night Owl Cafe in Greenwich Village alongside acts such as The Turtles and Lothar and the Hand People.^[24]

Taylor associated with a motley collection of people and began using heroin, to Kortchmar's dismay, and wrote the "Paint It, Black"-influenced "Rainy Day Man" to depict his drug experience.^[18][24] In a hasty recording session in late 1966, the group cut a single, Taylor's "Brighten Your Night with My Day" backed with his "Night Owl".^[25] Released on Jay Gee Records, a subsidiary of Jubilee Records, it received some radio airplay in the Northeast,^[25] but only charted to #102 nationally.^[26] Other songs had been recorded during the same session, but Jubilee declined to go forward with an album.^[25] After a series of poorly chosen appearances outside New York, culminating with a three-week stay at a failing nightspot in Freeport, Bahamas for which they were never paid, The Flying Machine broke up.^[25] (A UK band with the same name emerged in 1969 with the hit song "Smile a Little Smile for Me." The New York band's recordings were later released in 1971 as James Taylor and the Original Flying Machine.)

Taylor would later say of this New York period, "I learned a lot about music and too much about drugs."^[23] Indeed, his drug use had developed into full-blown heroin addiction during the final Flying Machine period: "I just fell into it, since it was as easy to get high in the Village as get a drink."^[25] He hung out in Washington Square Park, playing guitar to ward off depression and then passing out, letting runaways and criminals stay at his apartment.^[27] Finally out of money and abandoned by his manager, he made a desperate call one night to his father. Isaac Taylor flew to New York and staged a rescue, renting a car and driving all night back to North Carolina with James and his possessions.^[27] Taylor spent six months getting treatment and making a tentative recovery; he also required a throat operation to fix vocal cords damaged from singing too harshly.^[28]

Taylor decided to try being a solo act and a change of scenery. In late 1967, funded by a small family inheritance, he moved to London, living variously in Notting Hill, Belgravia, and Chelsea.^[29] He recorded some demos in Soho and, capitalizing on Kortchmar's connection to The King Bees (who once opened for Peter and Gordon), brought the demos to Peter Asher, who was A&R head for The Beatles' newly formed label Apple Records.^[30] Asher showed the demos to Paul McCartney, who later said, "I just heard his voice and his guitar and I thought he was great ... and he came and played live, so it was just like, 'Wow, he's great.'"^[30] Taylor became the first non-British act signed to Apple.^[30] Living chaotically in various places with various women, Taylor wrote additional material, including "Carolina in My Mind", and rehearsed with a new backing band.^[31] Taylor recorded what would become his first album from July to October 1968 at Trident Studios, at the same time The Beatles were recording The White Album.^[31][32] McCartney and an uncredited George Harrison guested on "Carolina in My Mind", whose lyric holy host of others standing around me referred to the Beatles, while the title phrase of Taylor's "Something in the Way She Moves" provided the lyrical starting point for Harrison's classic "Something."^[33][34] McCartney and Asher brought in arranger Richard Hewson to add both orchestrations to several of the songs and unusual "link" passages between them; these would receive a mixed reception at best.^[33][35]

During the recording sessions, Taylor fell back into his drug habit, using heroin and methedrine.^[33] He underwent physeptone treatment in a British program, returned to New York and was hospitalized there, and then finally committed himself to the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, which emphasized cultural and historical factors in trying to treat difficult psychiatric disorders.^[36] Meanwhile, Apple released his debut album, James Taylor, in December 1968 in the UK and February 1969 in the U.S.^[36] Critical reaction was generally good, including a very positive Jon Landau review in Rolling Stone which said "this album is the coolest breath of fresh air I've inhaled in a good long while. It knocks me out."^[35] The record's commercial potential suffered from Taylor's inability to promote it due to his hospitalization and it sold poorly; "Carolina in My Mind" was released as a single, but failed to chart in the UK and only reached #118 in the U.S.^[36]

Apple Corps itself had fallen into chaos, with anarchic business planning and freeloaders taking advantage of it in every direction.^[37] In early 1969, to clean up the situation, three of the Beatles brought in Allen Klein, who began purging Apple personnel.^[38] Asher did not like Klein; he resigned of his own accord and offered to manage Taylor, to which Taylor agreed.^[39] Klein wanted to hit Taylor with a $5 million lawsuit for leaving,^[40] but McCartney (a Klein antagonist) and then the other Beatles, overruled him on the grounds that artists should not be holding each other to contracts.^[39]

In July 1969 Taylor headlined a six-night stand at The Troubadour in Los Angeles. On July 20 he performed at the Newport Folk Festival as the last act, and was cheered by thousands of fans who stayed in the rain to hear him.^[41][42] Shortly thereafter, he broke both hands and both feet in a motorcycle accident on Martha's Vineyard and was forced to stop playing for several months.^[43] But while recovering, he continued to write songs and in October 1969, signed a new deal with Warner Bros. Records.^[43]

1970–1973: Breakthrough[link]

Taylor in the early 1970s.

Once recovered, Taylor moved to California, keeping Asher as his manager and record producer. In December 1969, he held the recording sessions for his second album there. Entitled Sweet Baby James, and with the participation of Carole King, the album was released in February 1970 and was Taylor's critical and popular triumph, buoyed by the single "Fire and Rain", a song about Taylor's experience in psychiatric institutions and the suicide of his friend, Suzanne Schnerr. Both the album and the single reached #3 in the Billboard charts, with Sweet Baby James selling more than 1½ million copies in its first year^[18] and eventually more than 3 million in the United States alone. Sweet Baby James was received at its time as a folk-rock masterpiece, an album that effectively showcased Taylor's talents to the mainstream public, marked the direction he would take in following years, and made Taylor one of the main forces of the nascent movement. It earned several Grammy Award nominations including one for Album of the Year. (It would be listed at #103 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, with "Fire and Rain" listed as #227 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time the year after.)

Mise en scène for Two-Lane Blacktop: Boswell, Oklahoma

During the time Sweet Baby James was released, Taylor appeared with Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys in a Monte Hellman film, Two-Lane Blacktop. In October 1970, he performed with Joni Mitchell, Phil Ochs, and the Canadian band Chilliwack at a Vancouver benefit concert that funded Greenpeace's protests of 1971 nuclear weapons tests by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission at Amchitka, Alaska. (This performance would be released in 2009 on the album Amchitka, The 1970 Concert That Launched Greenpeace.) In January 1971, sessions for Taylor's next album began.

His career success so far, and appeal to female fans of various ages, piqued tremendous interest in Taylor, prompting a March 1, 1971, Time magazine cover story.^[18] It compared his strong-but-brooding persona to that of Wuthering Heights's Heathcliff and to The Sorrows of Young Werther, and said that, "Taylor's use of elemental imagery—darkness and sunlight, references to roads traveled and untraveled. to fears spoken and left unsaid—reaches a level both of intimacy and controlled emotion rarely achieved in purely pop music."^[18] Released in April, Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon also gained massive critical acclaim and contained Taylor's biggest hit single in the U.S., a version of the Carole King standard "You've Got a Friend" (featuring backing vocals by Joni Mitchell), which reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late July. The album itself reached #2 in the album charts, which would be Taylor's highest position ever on this list. In early 1972, Taylor received his first Grammy Award, for (Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male) for "You've Got a Friend" (King also won Song of the Year for the same song in that ceremony). The album went on to sell 2½ million copies in the United States alone.

November 1972 saw the release of Taylor's fourth album, One Man Dog. A concept album primarily recorded in his home recording studio, it featured cameos by Linda Ronstadt and consisted of eighteen short pieces of music put together. It was received with generally lukewarm reviews and, despite making the Top 10 of the Billboard Album Charts, overall sales were disappointing. The lead single "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight" peaked at #18 on the Hot 100, and the follow-up, "One Man Parade", barely reached the Top 75. Almost simultaneously, Taylor married fellow singer-songwriter Carly Simon on November 3, in a small ceremony at her Murray Hill, Manhattan apartment.^[44] A post-concert party following a Taylor performance at Radio City Music Hall turned into a large-scale wedding party, and the Simon-Taylor marriage would find much public attention over the following years.^[44] They had two children, Sarah Maria "Sally" Taylor, born January 7, 1974, and Benjamin Simon "Ben" Taylor, born January 22, 1977.^[45]

1974–1976: Career ups and downs[link]

Taylor spent most of 1973 enjoying his new life as a married man, and he did not return to the recording studio until January 1974, when sessions for his fifth album began. Walking Man was released in June and featured appearances of Paul and Linda McCartney and guitarist David Spinozza. The album was a critical and commercial disaster, being his first album to miss the Top 5 since his contract with Warner. It received poor reviews and sold a mere 300,000 copies in the United States. The title track was a huge disappointment, and failed to even appear on the Top 100 – nevertheless, it stands today as an often reprised fan favorite in concerts.^{[citation needed]}

However, James Taylor's artistic fortunes spiked again in 1975 when the Gold album Gorilla reached #6 and provided one of his biggest hit singles, a cover version of Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)", which featured wife Carly in backing vocals and reached #5 in America and #1 in Canada. On the Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart, the track also reached the top, and the follow-up single, the feel-good "Mexico" also reached the Top 5 of that list. A critically very well received album, Gorilla showcased Taylor's electric, lighter side that was evident on Walking Man. However, it was arguably a more consistent and fresher-sounding Taylor, with classics such as "Wandering" and "Angry Blues." It also featured a song about his daughter Sally, "Sarah Maria".

Gorilla was followed in 1976 by In the Pocket, Taylor's last studio album to be released under Warner Bros. Records. The album found him with many colleagues and friends, including Art Garfunkel, David Crosby, Bonnie Raitt and Stevie Wonder (who co-wrote a song with Taylor and contributed a harmonica solo). A very melodic album, it was highlighted with the single "Shower the People", an enduring classic that hit #1 Adult Contemporary and almost hit the Top 20 of the Pop Charts. But the album was not very well received, reaching only #16 and being highly criticized, particularly by Rolling Stone. Nevertheless 1976 was a huge boom year in the recording business — the year of inception of the "Platinum" disc — and In The Pocket was certified Gold.

With the close of Taylor's contract with Warner, in November the label released Greatest Hits, the album that comprised most of his best work between 1970 and 1976. It became with time his best-selling album, ever. It was certified eleven times Platinum in the US, earning a Diamond certification by the RIAA and eventually selling close to twenty million copies worldwide. It still stands as the best-selling folk album by any artist.^{[citation needed]}

1977–1981: Move to Columbia and maintained success[link]

In 1977 Taylor signed with Columbia Records. Between March and April, he quickly recorded his first album for the label. JT, released that June, gave Taylor his best reviews since Sweet Baby James, earning a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year in 1978. Rolling Stone was particularly favorable to the album – "JT is the least stiff and by far the most various album Taylor has done. That's not meant to criticize Taylor's earlier efforts [...]. But it's nice to hear him sounding so healthy."^[46] JT reached #4 in the Billboard charts, selling more than 3 million copies in the United States alone. The album's Triple Platinum status ties it with Sweet Baby James as Taylor's all-time biggest selling studio album. It was propelled by the highly successful cover of Jimmy Jones and Otis Blackwell's "Handy Man", which hit #1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and reached #4 on the Hot 100, earning Taylor another Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for his cover version. The song also topped the Canadian charts. The success of the album propelled the release of two further singles – the up-tempo pop "Your Smiling Face" (an enduring live favorite) reached the American Top 20; however, "Honey Don't Leave L.A.," penned by Danny Kortchmar did not enjoy much success, barely reaching the Top 75.

Back in the forefront of popular music, Taylor collaborated with Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel in the recording of a cover of Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World", which reached the Top 20 in the U.S. and topped the AC charts in early 1978. After briefly working on Broadway, he took a one-year break, reappearing in the summer of 1979 with the cover-studded Platinum album Flag, featuring a Top 30 version of Gerry Goffin and Carole King's "Up on the Roof". (Two selections from Flag, "Millworker" and "Brother Trucker," were featured on the PBS production of the Broadway musical based on Studs Terkel's non-fiction book Working, and James himself appeared in that production as a trucker; he performed "Brother Trucker" in character.) Taylor also appeared on the No Nukes concert in Madison Square Garden, where he made a memorable live performance of "Mockingbird" with his wife Carly. The concert appeared on both the No Nukes album and film.

On December 7, 1980, Taylor had an encounter with Mark David Chapman who would assassinate John Lennon. Taylor told the BBC in 2010 "The guy had sort of pinned me to the wall and was glistening with maniacal sweat and talking some freak speak about what he was going to do and his stuff with how John was interested, and he was going to get in touch with John Lennon. And it was surreal to actually have contact with the guy 24 hours before he shot John." The next night Taylor, who lived in the next building from Lennon, heard the assassination occur. Taylor commented "I heard him shot — five, just as quick as you could pull the trigger, about five explosions".^[47]

In March 1981, James Taylor released the album Dad Loves His Work, whose themes concerned his relationship with his father, the course his ancestors had taken, and the effect he and Simon had had on each other.^[48] The album was another Platinum success, reaching #10 and providing Taylor's final real hit single in a duet with J. D. Souther, "Her Town Too," which reached #5 Adult Contemporary and #11 on the Hot 100 in Billboard. The album's title was, in part, drawn from the reasons for Taylor's divorce from Carly Simon. She gave him an ultimatum: cut back on his music and touring, and spend more time with her and their children, or the marriage was through. The album's title was Taylor's answer, and Simon asked for divorce. (The emotional repercussions of the divorce likely served as at least part of the inspiration for "Her Town Too.")

1981–1996: Troubled times and new beginnings[link]

Simon announced her separation from Taylor in September 1981 – saying "Our needs are different; it seem[s] impossible to stay together" – and their divorce became final in 1983.^[49] Taylor was living on West End Avenue in Manhattan and on a methadone maintenance program.^[50] Over the course of four months starting in September 1983, spurred on in part by the deaths of his friends John Belushi and Dennis Wilson and in part by the desire to be a better father to his children, he dropped methadone and finally kicked his habit for good.^[50]

Taylor had thoughts of retiring by the time he played the massive Rock in Rio festival in Rio de Janeiro in January 1985.^[51] He was encouraged by the nascent democracy in Brazil at the time, buoyed by the positive reception he got from the large crowd and other musicians, and musically energized by the sounds and nature of Brazilian music.^[52] "I had... sort of bottomed-out in a drug habit, my marriage with Carly had dissolved, and I had basically been depressed and lost for a while, " he recalled in 1995. "I sort of hit a low spot. I was asked to go down to Rio de Janeiro to play in this festival down there. We put the band together and went down and it was just an amazing response. I played to 300,000 people. They not only knew my music, they knew things about it and were interested in aspects of it that to that point had only interested me. To have that kind of validation right about then was really what I needed. It helped get me back on track." ^[53] The song "Only a Dream in Rio" was written in tribute to that night, with lines like I was there that very day and my heart came back alive.^[52] The October 1985 album, That's Why I'm Here, from which that song came, started a series of studio recordings that, while spaced further apart than his previous records, showed a more consistent level of quality and fewer covers, most notably the Buddy Holly song "Everyday", released as a single reached #61.

On December 14, 1985, Taylor married actress Kathryn Walker at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.^[54] Taylor's next albums were partially successful – in 1988, he released Never Die Young, highlighted with the charting title track, and in 1991, the platinum New Moon Shine provided Taylor some popular songs with the melancholic "Copperline" and the upbeat "(I've Got to) Stop Thinkin' About That", both hit singles in the AC radio. During the late 1980s, he began touring regularly, especially on the summer amphitheater circuit. His later concerts feature songs from throughout his career and are marked by the musicianship of his band and backup singers. The 1993 two-disc Live album captures this, with a highlight being Arnold McCuller's descants in the codas of "Shower the People" and "I Will Follow." In 1995, Taylor performed the role of the Lord in Randy Newman's Faust.

1997–2003: Successful comeback[link]

Taylor in 1999

After 6 years since his last studio album, Taylor released Hourglass, an introspective album that gave him the best critical reviews in almost twenty years. The album had much of its focus on Taylor's troubled past and family. "Jump Up Behind Me" paid tribute to his father's rescue of him after The Flying Machine days, and the long drive from New York City back to his home in Chapel Hill.^[55] "Enough To Be On Your Way" was inspired by the alcoholism-related death of his brother Alex earlier in the decade.^[56] The themes were also inspired by Taylor and Walker's divorce, which took place in 1996.^[57] Rolling Stone found that "one of the themes of this record is disbelief", while Taylor told the magazine that it was "spirituals for agnostics."^[58] Critics embraced the dark themes on the album, and Hourglass was a huge commercial success, reaching #9 on the Billboard 200 (Taylor's first Top 10 album in sixteen years) and also provided a big adult contemporary hit on "Little More Time With You". The album also gave Taylor his first Grammy since JT, when he was honored with Best Pop Album in 1998.

Taylor and wife Caroline "Kim" Smedvig, seen in 2008

On February 18, 2001, at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Boston, Taylor wed for the third time, marrying Caroline ("Kim") Smedvig, the director of public relations and marketing for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.^[59] They had begun dating in 1995, when they met as he appeared with John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra.^[59] Part of their relationship was worked into the album October Road, on the song "On the 4th of July."^[60] The couple reside in the town of Washington, Massachusetts^[61] with their twin boys, Rufus and Henry, born in April 2001 to a surrogate mother via in vitro fertilization.^[59]

Flanked by two greatest hit releases, Taylor's Platinum-certified October Road appeared in 2002 to a receptive audience. It featured a number of quiet instrumental accompaniments and passages. Overall, it found Taylor in a more peaceful frame of mind; rather than facing a crisis now, Taylor said in an interview that "I thought I'd passed the midpoint of my life when I was 17."^[62] The album appeared in two versions, a single-disc version and a "limited edition" two-disc version which contained three extra songs including a duet with Mark Knopfler, "Sailing to Philadelphia," which also appeared on Knopfler's Sailing to Philadelphia album. Also in 2002, Taylor teamed with bluegrass musician Alison Krauss in singing "The Boxer" at the Kennedy Center Honors Tribute to Paul Simon. They later recorded the Louvin Brothers duet, "How's the World Treating You?" In 2004, after he chose not to renew his record contract with Columbia/Sony, he released James Taylor: A Christmas Album with distribution through Hallmark Cards.

Current events[link]

Always visibly active in environmental and liberal causes, in October 2004 Taylor joined the "Vote for Change" tour playing a series of concerts in American swing states. These concerts were organized by MoveOn.org with the goal of mobilizing people to vote for John Kerry and against George W. Bush in that year's Presidential campaign. Taylor's appearances were joint performances with the Dixie Chicks.

Taylor performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Game 2 of the World Series in Boston on October 24, 2004, and again on October 25, 2007. In December 2004, he appeared as himself in an episode of The West Wing entitled "A Change Is Gonna Come". He sang Sam Cooke's classic "A Change Is Gonna Come" at an event honoring an artist played by Taylor's wife Caroline. Later on, he appeared on CMT's Crossroads alongside the Dixie Chicks. In early 2006, MusiCares honored Taylor with performances of his songs by an array of notable musicians. Before a performance by the Dixie Chicks, lead singer Natalie Maines acknowledged that he had always been one of their musical heroes, and had for them lived up to their once-imagined reputation of him.^[63] They performed his song, "Shower the People", with a surprise appearance by Arnold McCuller, who has sung backing vocals on Taylor's live tours and albums for many years.

In the fall of 2006, Taylor released a repackaged and slightly different version of his Hallmark Christmas album, now entitled James Taylor at Christmas, and distributed by Columbia/Sony. In 2006, Taylor performed Randy Newman's song "Our Town" for the Disney animated film Cars. The song was nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for the best Original Song. On January 1, 2007, Taylor headlined the inaugural concert at the Times Union Center in Albany, New York, honoring newly sworn in Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer.

Taylor's next album, One Man Band was released on CD and DVD in November 2007 on Starbucks' Hear Music Label, where he joined with Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell. The introspective album grew out of a three-year tour of the United States and Europe—featuring some of Taylor's most beloved songs and anecdotes about their creative origins—accompanied solely by the "one man band" of his longtime pianist/keyboardist, Larry Goldings. The digital discrete 5.1 surround sound mix of One Man Band won a TEC Award for best surround sound recording in 2008.^[64]

November 28–30, 2007, Taylor, accompanied by his original band and Carole King, headlined a series of six shows at The Troubadour. The appearances marked the 50th anniversary of the venue, where Taylor, King and many others, such as Tom Waits, Neil Diamond, and Elton John, began their music careers. Proceeds from the concert went to benefit the Natural Resources Defense Council, MusiCares, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, and the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank, a member of America's Second Harvest — The Nation's Food Bank Network. Parts of the performance shown on CBS Sunday Morning in the December 23, 2007, broadcast showed Taylor alluding to his early drug problems by saying, "I played here a number of times in the 70s, allegedly..." Taylor has used versions of this joke on other occasions, and it appears as part of his One Man Band DVD and tour performances.

Taylor with his Band of Legends performing on July 3, 2008, during one of their many shows at Tanglewood

In December 2007 James Taylor at Christmas was nominated for a Grammy Award. In January 2008 Taylor recorded approximately 20 songs by others for a new album with a band including Luis Conte, Michael Landau, Lou Marini, Arnold McCuller, Jimmy Johnson, David Lasley, Walt Fowler, Andrea Zonn, Kate Markowitz, Steve Gadd and Larry Goldings. The resulting live-in-studio album, named Covers, was released in September 2008.^[65] This album forays into country and soul while being the latest proof that Taylor is a more versatile singer than his best known hits might suggest. The Covers sessions stretched to include "Oh What a Beautiful Morning," from the musical Oklahoma - a song that his grandmother had caught him singing over and over at the top of his lungs when he was seven years old.^[66] Meanwhile, in summer 2008, Taylor and this band toured 34 North American cities with a tour entitled James Taylor and His Band of Legends. An additional album, called Other Covers, came out in April 2009, containing songs that were recorded during the same sessions as the original Covers but had not been put out to the full public yet.^[67]