What is a Community?

John Spacey, June 17, 2022

A community is a group of people who socialize in a location. This concept is often expanded to describe informal social groups that enjoy a shared sense of belonging and comradely independently of location. The following is a complete overview of community including definitions, examples and comparisons.

Definition (precise)	A group of people who socialize in a location.
Definition (expanded)	Informal social groups that enjoy a shared sense of belonging and comradely independently of location.
Type	Social Group
Examples	Neighborhoods Small Towns Cities Ethnic Groups Religions Interests (e.g. sailing community) Lifestyle (e.g. simple living community) Professions (e.g. scientific community) Situation (e.g. expat community) Culture (e.g. the art world)
Components	Social Interaction Sense of Belonging Sense of Shared Identity Civility Norms & Culture Mutual Support
Community vs Culture	Community refers to people. Culture refers to shared meaning and norms that emerge in groups that spend time together. Culture and community often overlap. A community can include many cultures. A culture can span many communities. For example, a neighborhood may have many ethnicities that each have an ethnic culture. In this context, a neighborhood culture and neighborhood community may also exist.
Community vs Society	A society is a comprehensive system for organizing life in a place. This usually occurs at the level of nations. A society is far larger than a community and isn't informal. For example, a society includes things like laws that are formally defined. A society typically includes many communities. A community can span multiple societies.
Counterexamples	Communities are informally defined such that a person may feel like part of the community if they participate in it in some way. Any social group with formal membership is not a community. The following are counterexamples, meaning that these things are specifically not communities in themselves. Societies Nations Organizations Institutions
Applicable Domains	Sociology Biology

Notes

Community originally refers to the social unit that develops when people live together in a place such as a neighborhood or small town. The expanded definition is essentially an analogy whereby people who have some common interest or culture resemble neighbors.

In many cases there is a community associated with an city, organization or institution. For example, the community associated with a school might include people like parents, former students and former teachers who have some connection to the school but aren't current members of it.