A City is a place on the planet, which is being developed by you, or is available for potential development. Every city occupies one of the slots on the planet, visible as dots. The color of a dot on a planet has the following meaning:
- White: the place is free. As long as you don't have exhausted the limit for the particular map, you can start a city there. Click on the dot to bring up the "start a new city' menu.
- Light green: the place is occupied by a city. Click on the dot to bring up the City menu.
Each dot (slot) is linked to one of the available maps, and by hovering your mouse over it you're able to see the name of the map and a short description for it. While "city" in normal English would have a minimum population (because villages and towns are smaller than cities), in Cities XL a city can have any population. That means that Village and Town are no game concepts, only City is.