Civilization (or civilisation in British English) is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways.

Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally hierarchical and urbanized. In a classical context, people were called "civilized" to set them apart from barbarians, savages, and primitive peoples while in a modern-day context, "civilized peoples" have been contrasted with indigenous peoples ortribal societies. Use of "civilization" and related concepts are controversial because they may imply superiority and inferiority, and may imply a directionality to social changes that may or may not be realistic or desirable. There is a tendency to use the term in a less strict way, to mean approximately the same thing as "culture" and therefore, the term can more broadly refer to any important and clearly defined human society.[1] Still, even when used in this second sense, the word is often restricted to apply only to societies that have a certain set of characteristics, especially the founding of cities. Formal and informal judgements of how civilized a society is, are generally based on methods and extent of agriculture, trade routes, occupational specialization, a special governing class, andurbanism. Aside from these core elements, a civilization is often marked by any combination of a number of secondary elements, including a developed transportation system, writing,standardized measurement, currency, contractual and tortbased legal systems, characteristic art and architecture, mathematics, enhanced scientific understanding, metallurgy, politicalstructures, and organized religion.

civilization

(s v -l -z sh n) n. 1. An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions. 2. The type of culture and society developed by a particular nation or region or in a particular epoch: Mayan civilization; the civilization of ancient Rome. 3. The act or process of civilizing or reaching a civilized state. 4. Cultural or intellectual refinement; good taste. 5. Modern society with its conveniences: returned to civilization after camping in the mountains.

1 a : a relatively high level of cultural and technological development; specifically : the stage of cultural development at which writing and the keeping of written records is attained b : the culture characteristic of a particular time or place 2 : the process of becoming civilized 3 a : refinement of thought, manners, or taste b : a situation of urban comfort

Civilizations have distinctly different settlement patterns from ordinary societies. The word civilization is sometimes defined as "a word that simply means 'living in cities'" (Standage 2005:25). Non-farmers gather in cities to work and to trade. Compared with other societies, civilizations have a more complex political structure, namely the state. State societies are more stratified than other societies; there is a greater difference among social classes. The ruling class, normally concentrated in cities, has control over much of the surplus that constitutes wealth and exercises its will through the actions of agovernment, bureaucracy, technocracy, plutocracy, meritocracy, ad-hoccracy, and military.The term civilization has been defined and understood in a number of ways in a situation when there is no widely accepted standard definition. Sometimes it is used synonymously with a term culture. Civilization can also refer to society as a whole. To nineteenth-century English anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor, for example, civilization was "the total social heredity of mankind; in other words, civilization was the totality of human knowledge and culture as represented by the most "advanced" society at a given time.Some most popular definitions of civilizations will be reviewed and compared to find the most important components, which should be a part of a standard/composite definition.