The Scottish Rathäuser seem to be called city chambers, by the way.
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/internet/Council/...
Name: Council Secretary
Address: City Chambers, High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1YJ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_City_Chambers

Glasgow City Hall is something else entirely.

To me, "city hall" has a very modern-era, businesslike ring to it, and it does sound rather American. Gut feeling says that the generic term for the centre of a city's administration is "town hall", and I'd only use "city hall" in Britain for buildings which are actually so named. So for Rathauser, I would probably choose "town hall", especially if it's in any way historic and/or a tourist attraction. I might go for "city hall" if the city is very large and the building pretty modern - I'm thinking 20th century, probably post-war.

Sorry, there's an "e" missing from my Rathaeuser. I'm away from my normal Qwertz keyboard today.

A city, town or village in England is named according to its population. On the other hand a Rathaus can be found in almost any city, town or village, but I would never translate a village Rathaus as a town hall. It is a place where people always went for advice and is therefore something like the village hall. But in a village it is also the office of the Mayor, so it could be called the Mayor's Office. Villages in England do not have a town hall. They are part of a Rural District and are governed from a town hall.

The situation with regards to village, town or city is no different in the US, but our "halls" are named accordingly: a village (a rural district) generally has none, a town has a town hall and a city has a city hall. Which is why I wonder if cites in England truly have town halls.

A city, town or village in England is named according to its population

I thought city status was granted by the Queen, traditionally to towns with cathedrals...

Oh, back to the actual question:

Yes, even big cities in the UK (or at least in England) have town halls. Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool are all cities and have pretty impressive town halls.

And really, isn't the reverse is true in AE as well? Even a relatively small town may have a city hall, which is just the city office building, where the mayor and the city employees have their offices, and archives for things like birth and death certificates.

To me town hall in AE is used mainly figuratively, for a town-hall meeting (an open meeting where the speaker answers questions from, or leads discussion among, a large audience). If it were used literally, I would expect it to be a building housing a large open room used mainly for meetings or for functions such as dances or receptions, as opposed to an office building for city administration.

I only have two examples to judge from, but in my hometown, the city has a city hall with "yy city hall" written in large golden letters on its front, whereas just outside in the smaller town where my parents live, the town hall "town hall of xx" in black letters. It may be different in different parts of the country, or even just down the road, I've never looked.

@ # 8, I respectfully disagree with the second part. As it happens, the town I live in has a town hall that houses the offices of the town clerk, the assessor, the building inspector (all administrators) and a large room that is used as the town court room, a voting precinct on election day and for town board meetings and public hearings. Nobody would call that "city hall." That's the place where Mayor Bloomberg resides in NYC.

Okay, you may be right that it's different in different areas. A town hall in the sense you describe could be more a New England thing, since both of you are from NY state, IIRC.

In the novel I'm translating there's a "Town Hall" on West 43rd St in NYC which is regularly used for concert performances (even of symphony orchestras). This seems to come close to what hm--us has in mind (in #8). I'm very reluctant to translate this as Rathaus at all. It's more or less the equivalent of a German "Stadthalle". I've never been there so I can't say if this building serves other purposes as well (such as administration).

Vergl.: related discussion: Stadthalle (i.S. eines Gebäudes für Konzert... . . .

The other word I forgot to think of for smaller cities is municipal building. It's only literal, unlike city hall, which is often used figuratively to mean 'the mayor and the city council,' that is, the city leaders.

What town hall makes me think of is more like what in BE (or possibly New England) might be called a village hall, like a dance hall or community center: a low, one-story building, large enough for a modest-size meeting or party, not a huge event.

You'll have to look in Wikipedia or an internet image search for Town Hall in NYC to be sure, or wait for the New Yorkers to reappear. But it's surely not the Rathaus; that would be Mayor Bloomberg's office, as Helmi said. Stadthalle could indeed be a reasonable translation. I would guess that it might be like an old-fashioned theater or concert room, probably two stories, but not as big or as elegant as for the opera or the symphony; what in other US cities might be called a music hall.

@7: Auch in großen englischen Städten heißt das Rathaus meistens "Town Hall". es gibt aber Ausnahmen: Bradford, z.B. hat ein "City Hall".

Even if this seems to be a bit late I'd also want throw in "my two pennies":

Couldn't it be that the name is "town hall" because every city has at first been a town, and the name was simply kept?
I cannot imagine a place starting to exist in city size right from the beginning.

An idea for there being a few city halls might be that the inhabitants of the city decide to rename it when their town has reached a certain size, and another one that, when a new town hall is built, they give it the name "city hall" in order to distinguish it from the old "town hall".

Nachdem der Faden schon einmal ausgegraben ist: Sheffield beispielsweise hat eine Town Hall (das Rathaus) und eine City Hall (ein Konzerthaus).

re #4: a Rathaus can be found in almost any city, town or village... Ein Rathaus gibt es in Deutschland offenbar wirklich in jedem Dorf, in Österreich nur in Städten. Märkte und Dörfer haben ein Gemeindeamt.

in the UK "City" or "Town" does not relate to size; some quite small towns are cities because they have a cathedral, Wells, with a population 10,400, is a city e.g.

Wer das verwirrend findet, der wird vor einem französischen Hôtel de Ville völlig aufgeschmissen sein...

I remember the Stones singing abut "London Town" in Street Fighting Man, I think. Wouldn't that denote the downtown area of London?

Agree with #18 - though #16 is an interesting theory and may apply in some cases - who knows?

#21: London Town

The words "London Town" always sound a bit odd to me. "London" itself is actually quite an elastic word.

okay, but that doesn't answer my question, Kinky. :-)

Edit: "elastic"? Whaddayamean?

isn't London actually a town that is made up of districts / boroughs ? and two cities - City of London, and the City of Westminster?

isn't London actually a town that is made up of districts / boroughs ? and two cities - City of London, and the City of Westminster?

#22: okay, but that doesn't answer my question, Kinky. :-)

I'm working on it! :-)

mikefm has covered some of what I was going to say. I'd also throw in "Greater London" as one of the things covered by "London".

regarding cities, size doesn't matter... my example, Wells, has been a city for a long time, but even today its population is only around 10.5 thousand

I'm working on it! - I thought you Brits would always be ready with the perfect answer for such a dumb question that only a Yank-type person (or some ignoramus from the Continent) could ask. :-)

Zur Frage: "Braucht eine Stadt eine Kathedrale für den City-Status" und anderen:
http://lovemytown.co.uk/citystatus/index.htm