Downtown
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The title of this article is ambiguous. For other meanings, see Downtown (disambiguation).
The word downtown is used primarily in North American English to refer to the downtown or central business district of a city (usually in the geographic, commercial, or community sense).
It was coined in New York City, where it had been used since about 1830 to refer to the original city at the south end of Manhattan Island. As New York grew larger, the city could only grow north, up the river ("up"). As a result, everything to the north became known as "uptown" (Upper Manhattan) and, correspondingly, everything to the south became known as "downtown" (Lower Manhattan). Since many maps are presented in a single direction, "up" can also be understood as the direction north and "down" as the direction south.
In the 19th century, the term was gradually adopted by other U.S. and Canadian cities to refer to the historic downtown area. It did not appear in dictionaries until 1880, but was clearly established by the early 1900s.
· 
Chicago Loop
· 
downtown Toronto
downtown Clarksville
See also
- Downtown Switzerland
- The high-rise complex TownTown in Vienna-Erdberg with a construction period of about 2009-2016, with the ORBI Tower, plays with the term downtown.
