CITTA VECCHIA, cht.t-t5' v6ley:I. Former capital of =Malta, 6 miles west of Valetta.
CITY (Fr. cite, Lat. civitas). In the United States, a chartered municipal corporation whose chief executive officer is usually known as the mayor. The legislatures of the various States have prescribed different requisites for the grant ing of city charters, the principal condition being that in respect to population. City charters vary in the degree of power they confer on the munici pal authorities, the measure of local autonomy being usually. though not always, regulated by the number of inhabitants. Besides the mayor, there are, as a rule. a board of aldermen and a common couneil. In Great Britain the term city is generally applied to an incorporated cathedral town—i.e. one which is, or has been, the seat of a bishop or the capital of his see. In the sense in which it was first used in the Romance lan guages of modern Europe, the word 'city,' like its Latin original and the Greek 71-6Xts, was prob ably equivalent to State (respublico ), rather than to town or borough (orbs inunic-ipiuni): and while the latter signified a collection of hearths and households, governed by municipal laws inter nally, but subject externally to the laws of the cmmtry of which it a part, the former was applied only to such towns as, with their surrounding districts, were independent of any external authority. The only cities in this sense
now- are the free towns of Germany, and such of the eantons of Switzerland as consist chiefly of a town and its surroundings. as Geneva. The ancient Gauls, though composing one nation, were divided into tribes, living in different cantons, each with its towm, to which the term 'cieitas' was applied; and as they also acknowledged a species of central authority, several cities sending delegates to a central one of greater extent and importance to discuss their common affairs, there is reason to believe that the term 'city' was ap plied, par isc•//cocc, to those central places of meeting, and thus, from a very early period. sig nified a capital or metropolis, though not inde pendent. CITIZEN.