The concept of locality is a concept that is used at an administrative and geographical level to designate certain types of territories and spaces that are characterized by having some features in common. Localities can vary either in terms of surface area, number of inhabitants, geography, etc., but they are always considered an integral part of other administrative forms such as the province, the state or the country. In addition, depending on their size, they may or may not host different towns or small cities, each with a particular profile and identity.
The idea of locality arises in the Middle Ages from the reorganization of European territories formerly belonging to the provinces of the Roman Empire after its fall. In the absence of a central power to maintain order as that empire had done, many regions of greater or lesser size in Western Europe began to organize themselves, either administratively, politically and economically. Thus, localities emerge that were at this time small communities in which a population was mainly dedicated to one type of activity and whose inhabitants had shared identity traits, that is, official symbols, religious practices, forms of sociability, etc.
At present, the locality has varied greatly from what was this first form. In this sense, the main change that a current locality can present is the fact that today it is made up of a larger population, although not in all cases. To continue, the localities today can also be larger at a spatial level and include several villages or small towns that have the same administrative and government system to unite several jurisdictions under the same center. However, localities largely share with those of the Middle Ages the feeling of belonging to a space that is not only geographical but also cultural that determines the identity of its inhabitants to a great extent.
