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I asked my friend over in Italy and, sure enough, paese(i) may be country(ies) or town(s) depending on context. But village is villaggio and city is citta.
Hope this helps.
Italy originally wasn't controlled by one ruler. It was split up into a bunch of little ministates, each of which had their own main town. So Venice (and the surrounding area) would have its own ruler, independent of Rome's ruler. Or at least I think that's how it was. Now there are only two ministates in Italy: San Marino and the Vatican.
And the Vatican is technically it's own country, even though it is essentially a neighbourhood, if you will, with-in the city of Rome!
347
Also sovereign military order of St John of Jerusalem, Rodes and Malta which has its own diplomats and passport
- 177
My memory and my dictionary list 'paese' as country. Indeed here in the US we use the term 'paesano(a)' as a fellow countryman. 'Town' is noted as citta. (Sorry, my keyboard does not have accents.)
Yes, my dictionary translates paese as country or land and in a previous question we had town translated as citta. It is all quite confusing.
- 1882
In English "country" can refer to a nation-state or to a rural area (which tends to be a subset of a nation-state). So, there are some similarities.
Just as clarification- I live in Italy, and it can be quite confusing whensomeone asks "from which Paese are you?" ! It's more literal translation, and how think of it, is land. So that is how it refers to any sort of land/region (states, counties) seemingly without changing meaning.
In Scotland, and other parts of the UK we sometimes use town instead of city.
How do i need to understand "diverso"?
Does that sentence say the villages are different from each other, or are they all diverse, saying each place consist of various different people?
Paese includes only very small towns, otherwise it means mostly village. As the term city is not congruent to the term città , town does not always mean paese (but città ), only a village is always un paese.
