Understanding Community: Definitions by Leading Sociologists

What does it really mean to belong to a community? The word gets used all the time – for neighborhoods, religious groups, online forums, even professional networks. But in sociology, “community” is far more than a casual label. It is a carefully examined concept with specific elements that distinguish it from other social formations. Over decades, leading sociologists have worked to pin down exactly what a community is – and their definitions, though different in emphasis, reveal a consistent set of core ideas. Three of the most cited among them are Emory Bogardus, Kingsley Davis, and Morris Ginsberg.

Why defining community matters in sociology 🔗

The term “community” is, as noted in sociological literature, one of the most loosely used concepts in social science. In everyday language, people refer to a “teachers’ community” or a “Hindu community” without any reference to shared territory or common life. Sociologists, however, need a more precise understanding. Without a working definition, it becomes impossible to study how communities form, how they function, or how they differ from other social groups like associations or societies. That is why building a clear sociological definition of community has been a central task for theorists across generations.

Bogardus: community as shared feeling and shared space 🔗

Emory S. Bogardus (1882-1973) was an American sociologist best known for developing the Social Distance Scale in 1924 – a tool that measures how close or distant individuals feel toward members of other social, ethnic, or racial groups. His work was rooted in the belief that social life is fundamentally shaped by emotional and psychological bonds between people, not just by physical proximity.

When it came to community, Bogardus brought that same emotional lens to his definition. According to Bogardus, community is “a social group with some degree of ‘we-feeling’ and living in a given area.” Two elements stand out here: a defined geographical area and a sense of collective identity – what he called “we-feeling.”

The “we-feeling” is not trivial. It refers to the psychological sense of belonging that members of a group share – the feeling that they are part of something together. Bogardus argued that without this emotional bond, people sharing the same physical space are not truly a community. A crowd of strangers in a city block, for instance, occupies the same area but lacks the collective consciousness that defines community life. His Social Distance Scale further illustrated this point: the central element of social distance is affective distance – how much sympathy or closeness one group feels toward another. Communities, in this view, are held together not just by geography, but by shared feeling.

Kingsley Davis: community as the smallest complete social unit 🔗

Kingsley Davis approached community from a more structural and functional angle. A prominent figure in American sociology, Davis is known for his work on human society and population studies. His definition of community, drawn from his book Human Society (1957), is both compact and revealing.

According to Kingsley Davis, community is “the smallest territorial group that can embrace all aspects of social life.” Every word in this definition is deliberate. By “smallest,” Davis is making an important distinction: a community is not just any large social unit like a nation or civilization. It is the most basic, self-contained social unit in which a complete range of human social activities – economic, political, cultural, and familial – can take place.

The phrase “all aspects of social life” is particularly significant. It sets community apart from other groups that serve only partial or specific functions. A trade union, for example, exists for economic purposes. A church serves religious needs. But a community, in Davis’s view, encompasses the full breadth of social experience. As noted in sociological analysis, it is a geographic area in which there is a common center of interest and activity – a circle in which common life is lived in its entirety.

Davis also emphasized territory as a non-negotiable feature. A community must be grounded in a specific place. Without a territorial basis, a group may have shared interests or identity, but it cannot fulfill the full scope of social functions that make it a community in the sociological sense.

Ginsberg: community as common life and complex social relations 🔗

Morris Ginsberg, a British sociologist of the London School of Economics, added yet another layer to the concept. Where Bogardus emphasized emotional belonging and Davis focused on territorial completeness, Ginsberg highlighted the richness and complexity of social relationships that emerge from living together.

Ginsberg defined community as “a group of social beings living a common life including all the infinite variety and complexity of relations which result from that common life which constitutes it.” This definition shifts attention from geography and sentiment to the fabric of relationships itself. For Ginsberg, community is not just the group of people or the place they occupy – it is the entire web of interactions, dependencies, obligations, and connections that their shared life generates.

The phrase “infinite variety and complexity” is telling. Ginsberg was acknowledging that community life is not simple or uniform. Within any community, people relate to each other in dozens of ways – as neighbors, traders, co-worshippers, fellow voters, parents, and friends. These overlapping relationships form the living tissue of community. Ginsberg’s broader sociological perspective also recognized that community members work together toward shared goals – social, political, and economic – which further deepens the bond between them.

This definition is notably broader than the other two. It does not restrict community to a fixed territory or even to a specific “we-feeling.” Instead, it focuses on the dynamic, evolving nature of communal life itself – the idea that living together, over time, naturally produces a rich and complex network of human relationships that is the community.

What the three definitions have in common 🔗

Despite their different emphases, the definitions offered by Bogardus, Davis, and Ginsberg converge on several key elements. As MacIver and Page’s foundational analysis shows, two conditions consistently appear across sociological definitions of community: a shared locality and a sense of community sentiment.

Shared area or territory appears in all three definitions, either explicitly (Bogardus and Davis) or implicitly (Ginsberg’s “common life”). Almost all major sociologists – including Arnold Green, G.A. Lundberg, and Ogburn and Nimkoff – list territorial area as a basic condition of community. People must live in proximity for the interactions, habits, customs, and relationships of community life to develop.

Common life is another thread that runs through all three perspectives. Whether it is called “all aspects of social life” (Davis) or “infinite variety and complexity of relations” (Ginsberg), community involves a comprehensive, not partial, form of social existence. This is what distinguishes a community from an association: associations exist for specific purposes, while communities embrace the full range of human needs and activities.

Social relationships and sentiment complete the picture. Bogardus’s “we-feeling” is the clearest articulation of this, but Davis’s emphasis on functional interdependence and Ginsberg’s focus on complex relational bonds both point to the same truth: community is not just co-habitation. It is mutual awareness, shared identity, and the ties that bind people to each other over time.

Other significant definitions 🔗

Beyond these three thinkers, other sociologists have added nuance to the concept. R.M. MacIver described community as “an area of social living marked by some degree of social coherence,” stressing that mere physical proximity is insufficient – there must be an organized, coherent social life. G.A. Lundberg defined it as “a human population living within a limited geographical area and carrying on a common inter-dependent life,” highlighting economic and functional interdependence. Karl Mannheim described community as a circle of people who share not just one interest, but “a whole set of interests” – distinguishing it from more focused social groups. Together, these perspectives reinforce the idea that community is a multidimensional concept that cannot be reduced to any single factor.

Community versus society: a key distinction 🔗

One of the most important clarifications in sociology is the difference between community and society. As sociological notes distinguish, society is abstract – a network of social relationships that cannot be seen or touched – while community is concrete. You can locate a community, see its members, and observe its social life directly. Community sentiment, or “we-feeling,” is essential to community but is not a defining requirement for society. Society is also wider; a single society can contain multiple communities within it.

This distinction matters practically. When studying social problems – housing, poverty, health, or education – sociologists often work at the community level precisely because it is the most complete and bounded unit of social life. As Kingsley Davis noted in Human Society, a community is characterized by shared social customs, ideologies, and attitudes – making it the right unit for understanding how people actually live, not just how they are abstractly connected.

Are online communities “real” communities? 🔗

The traditional sociological definitions of community – grounded in territory, common life, and face-to-face relationships – were formulated before the internet existed. Today, millions of people participate in digital groups that share interests, language, norms, and even emotional bonds without ever occupying the same physical space. Do these qualify as communities in the sociological sense?

By Bogardus’s standard, online groups can develop strong “we-feeling” and shared identity – so they may qualify on the emotional dimension. By Davis’s standard, they fall short: they are not territorial groups, and they rarely embrace all aspects of social life. By Ginsberg’s standard, the verdict depends on the depth and complexity of the relationships involved. As sociological analysis has noted, the territorial bond of community has been weakening in the modern world due to expanding communication and transportation – but the basic character of locality as a social organizer has never been entirely replaced. The debate about digital communities is, in many ways, a continuation of this long-standing tension in sociological theory.

What do you think? Given that Bogardus, Davis, and Ginsberg each emphasize different elements – feeling, territory, and relationships – which of these do you think is the most essential ingredient for a true community? And do you think the sociological definition of community needs to be updated for the digital age, or do the original criteria still hold?

References

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