when im going to talk about a city i never can decide if use "it" or something like "he" or "she".

personally, i think cities are pretty much like people, they have nice sides, bad sides, character, and i even think some of them are more masculines than others. do you agree?

I don't believe 'it' matters, although I tend to use 'she'.

in latin languages (french, spanish, italian, portuguese), we call them 'she', rite? ;)

but it is an 'it'. Except in some context when you would refer to a city as 'they'.

the character and masculinity of a city is all opinion. Gender and the ability to reproduce (or help in the process) is fact and only female species are refered to as she and only male species are he.

Some people think its cool or whatever to call a city she, like they call a car "she". It sounds more story-like, more interesting. Like your talking about the city as if you would talk about your girlfriend.

yeah djm19, but that is an english language point of view.. in latin languages, as I said, every object have a gender.. but in english, it's just 'it'

I don't know if it's a personal habit, but for cities and countries within the British Commonwealth I refer to it as "She". All the others, I use "it".

In The Netherlands we pronounce cities with `It`. For example `Rotterdam and its harbour` or `The Hague and its royal palace`. The same like the English people do. In Germany they use the term `Ihre`or `Eure` or `der`
Stadt. It`s somewhat different from our expressions. For example `Cologne mit Ihrem Zoo`. That means her zoo. In France cities are pronounced by `la`,
that means a female expression. The kind I like, French is the most beautiful foreign language I speak.....

"It's a nice city"
to my ears sound much more natural than
"She's a nice city"

I use "It", because I'm not a captain of a ship ("Thar she blows, arrr."), like from the Simpsons.

well, it might be just that in spanish we use she and that's confusing.

I say 'it', as English doesn't give genders to all its nouns. One thing I never understood though; why do some modes of transport e.g. ships and aircraft get referred to as 'she' in English? They must be the only nouns that we give a gender to.

I would use "it". If I use "she" or "he" it makes me feel as though I am calling someone a city.

in latin languages (french, spanish, italian, portuguese), we call them 'she', rite? ;)


In latin languages, except for romanian (orasul) the gender of "city" is always feminine

A cidade, in portuguese
la ville, la cité, in french
la ciutat, in catalan
la ciudad, la villa in spanish
la città in italian

but then when you name some cities, at least in Spanish, it can be both masculine or feminine as you "feel" it.

Madrid can be "bello" or "bella", "limpio" or "limpia"

Some other cities are undoubtfully feminine, like Barcelona or Valencia.

I say 'it', as English doesn't give genders to all its nouns. One thing I never understood though; why do some modes of transport e.g. ships and aircraft get referred to as 'she' in English? They must be the only nouns that we give a gender to.


No, those are "it" as well. Some people just like to refer to their boat as she, or their ship as she. "She" is a little bit more of an emotional term than "it".

@railway stick

No we don't. "The city" is translated in Dutch as "de stad", not "het stad". "De" is the male/female form, "het" is the neutral form. Your example: Rotterdam and its harbour is translated as "Rotterdam en haar haven" so it is female. We don't even have a word for "its", so you will always have to choose between "his" (zijn) or "her" (haar).

In Dutch we say 'de stad', indeed the male/female form. Cities are beautiful, that's why they are female :)
We only say 't Stad (short form of 'het Stad') when we refer to Antwerp.

I never use he or she for a city. It sounds very strange for me. Same for countries.

In Italian all the cityes are "she"

i think it just depends on what language you speak

I say "it"

In English cities are "it".
In Spanish, it depends:
Barcelona is feminine.
Madrid is masculine.
Etc.
;)

In English cities are "it".
In Spanish, it depends:
Barcelona is feminine.
Madrid is masculine.
Etc.
;)

not neccesarily, you say "la ciudad de madrid" not "el ciudad de madrid" so wouldnt madrid be femenine too?

in latin languages (french, spanish, italian, portuguese), we call them 'she', rite? ;)

actually not, bilbao would be EL bilbao, nobody would say LA Bilbao, but you know Bilbaines are quite an exception in this world... :jk:

actually not, bilbao would be EL bilbao, nobody would say LA Bilbao, but you know Bilbaines are quite an exception in this world... :jk:

again, i explained this some posts ago. Bilbao is LA villa de Bilbao, and if you are speaking about Bilbao you can use both. Bilbao está limpiO or Bilbao está limpiA. In fact i think the people from Bilbao prefer the second form.

^depends on how you are using the word , if you say "el gobierno de buenos aires" (the goverment of buenos aires) is correct. its all about grammar really.

She is used when we are talking about things/places/whatever of extreme beauty. It is also used for gigantic objects like cruise ships, airships, statues etc. If you consider your city as something that exemplifies extreme beauty, sheer elegance and colossal stature, then I guess you should refer to it as a "She". Isnt it?

I think English is the only language (incorporating a concept of noun-gender) that actually got its noun-gender scheme RIGHT -- anything that's not, nor has ever been, a living, dead, or unborn biological male or female... is "it". The whole idea of assigning male or female gender to things like bricks, mountains, coins, fruit, and buckets of water is inane. Now, there might be quite a few other areas where it screwed up (parking on driveways and driving on parkways comes to mind), but at least gender wasn't one of them ;-)

Well, ok... an official set of gender-agnostic third-person pronouns (for situations where gender exists, but is irrelevant or prejudicial) would be nice... but "they" and "their" have taken on that role anyway (even though English teachers officially condemn the practice despite doing it themselves) :-D

again, i explained this some posts ago. Bilbao is LA villa de Bilbao, and if you are speaking about Bilbao you can use both. Bilbao está limpiO or Bilbao está limpiA. In fact i think the people from Bilbao prefer the second form.


I don't think so, but really, that doesn't keep me awake at night!

it definitely is "it" it isnt a goddamn ship we are talking about right? Ships can be called she in english just like in swedish, perhaps also clocks are included in this special linguistic rules....

"Det/den" equals "it" in Swedish, so I guess I'm an "it-person" as well.

I just call cities "it" and don't think I've ever referred to one as she/he.

yes it is right

In Romanian, town, city and village is masculine, commune is feminine. But when using individual names, it depends on it's form. However masculine/feminine doesn't really matter for pronouns, because you don't have to use a subject in Romanian. It only really matters for articulating the noun (because the definite article is enclitic - attached to the end of the word), or for adjectives which have to be of the same gender.

In English, cities would be simply be it.

in latin languages (french, spanish, italian, portuguese), we call them 'she', rite? ;)

In spanish we call -the cities- in femenine "la ciudad"

You could call some cities "she-it"! :lol:

my city is a "she". When I learned English i found really strange people refer to animals as "it", that's far worse than calling a city "it", even when using English, i refer to animals as "he" or "she".

You could call some cities "she-it"! :lol:

:rofl:

In Italian all the cityes are "she"

There are few cities which are 'he' as Cairo

Anyway in Italian there is not neuter grammatical gender

You could call some cities "she-it"! :lol:

:hilarious

Personally, I've always been a bit uncomfortable with the old habit of calling a city "she" when we get all slobbery and misty-eyed about a city and want to add emphasis to our point of view. It is as if all the attributes of a beautiful woman are going to be transferred over the city we are looking at while wearing rose coloured glasses.

In Spanish is La ciudad, which is female.

I always use "it" :D

It's interesting, the different uses of "she" for non-feminine things.

Many people use "she" when they're referring to things with motors, most commonly used when discussing modes of transportation. They basically equate a ship/car/truck/whatever with a tempermental woman. As in, "take it easy with her, she's a little testy today."

Others call something dear to them "she" as a term of respect. As in, "this old building, she's seen a lot of history." Certainly a city can be dear to someone, so I think it's perfectly acceptable to call it "she".

In Croatia it depends about the name of the city.
For instance, Zagreb, Split, Osijek, Varaždin, Zadar are masculine.
Rijeka, Pula, Požega are feminine.
Vinkovci, Delnice are plural.
Word city (grad) itself is masculine, village is neuter, county and municipality are feminine.

I call everyone "she" including male.

hmm, depends.

if you're speaking english, you have no choice but to refer to a city using "it". anything else would be incorrect.

I wonder if people ever colloquially refer to the various Johnson Cities in the US as "she"...

In Greek city, (πόλη) is a feminine noun. (there have genders like in German) But not all cities are "she" and not all cities are in singular. In ancient times all cities were in plural, but most turned singular (for English speakers, Athens is consider plural?)