[I'm] gonna die in this small town, and that's probably where they'll bury me."
Many stories prefer a big city because it's exciting. But sometimes a story instead needs a small town setting, where people know each other, and "time slows down to a crawl". Of course, size is relative, and a small town can be anywhere from tens of thousands, to a few hundred, depending on your perspective.
A good example in fiction: In The Wheel of Time series, the heroes come from Emonds Field, which is a small town of a few hundred people. They get to a city (regional capital) and are all amazed at the size: thousands of people! Then they go to the capital city, and discover that "big city" they were so impressed by is considered a small town, and that nobody has even heard of Emonds Field.
Compare to Countryside Index.
There are a lot of specialized subtropes of the small town:
- Adventure Towns are often small
- Arcadia can contain really low level population towns
- Big Town Boredom: When someone from a bigger city or mid-sized suburb wishes they could move to a smaller or more rural place.
- Clean Up the Town
- Company Town: Usually fairly small, as the town's entire purpose is just to support one company's work.
- Corny Nebraska: Nebraska can contain a lot of small towns known for their corn farms.
- A Close-Knit Community is often a small town.
- Down on the Farm can also contain them.
- Dreamville: Small towns that exist only in the imaginary.
- Dying Town
- Everyone Went to School Together
- Everytown, America: The stereotypical American small town.
- Fake Town: When the "town" turns out not to be real at all.
- Farm Life Sim
- Flyover Country and the Deep South are famous for these.
- From New York to Nowhere: When a character moves from a major city to a rural or small-town location.
- Ghost Town: A small town's population has dwindled down to just a few individuals at most, if anyone even still lives there at all.
- Half-Witted Hillbilly: People from small towns are incredibly dumb.
- I Own This Town
- Informed Small Town: Inaccurate fictional portrayal of small towns.
- Lovecraft Country might contain these.
- As might a work in a Southern Gothic setting.
- Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here
- Only Shop in Town occurs most commonly with small towns.
- Quirky Town
- Small Town, Big Hell: In a small town where all people meet each other, when a drama occurs everyone will know about it.
- Small Town Boredom: Someone grows tired of life in their dull little town or village, and wants to move into a larger city.
- Small-Town Tyrant: Evil authority figure of a small town.
- Suburban Gothic media will take place in a sleepy smaller community
- Supernatural Hotspot Town: This town attracts the supernatural.
- The Town with a Dark Secret is usually small as it's easier to keep a secret if only a small number of people are in on it.
- Tyrannical Town Tycoon: A corrupt rich prick who rules over the small town like some sort of modern nobleman.
