ceremonial [central location, specially designed for ceremonial and state performances, monuments, government, courts or other state, district or city importance buildings, sometimes theaters, museums. used occasionally for public demonstrations, celebrations, strikes, revolutions! example: rossio (praca dom pedro IV), lisboa, portugal.]

cathedral, temple [developed around cathedral, temple or other religious structure, at the beginning mainly used for religious ceremonies, later quite often other content and usage added. example: place royale, ville de québec, canada.]

social, residential [mostly pedestrian square or with very limited car traffic, sometimes with market place, some retail, cisterna, small church, etc. example: campo san martin, venezia, italy.]

traffic circle [intersection of several streets, traffic circle, crossroad, sometimes with monument, fountain or little patch of greenery. example: square saint medard, paris, france.]

court yard [public spaces within built structures, in contemporary times converted to public usage, originally developed as private. example: elm court, london, england.]

with park [squares originally developed in england, in residential areas with public or private park in the middle. in other cultures parks are very often incorporated in the main city square, with important public building around perimeter in a similar way as in ceremonial category. example: soho square, london, plaza mayor, trinidad, cuba.]

street, shopping [squares developed in mainly pedestrianized shopping ares, usually with lot of tourist amenities. example: lijnbaan, rotterdam, holland.]

this types of square classification is developed over time, with the purpose to better understand the role of the squares, the most important invention of traditional town planning. role of the square as the center of economic, civic, social and cultural life. it will definitely change and expand as we explore further. we are aware that some of the squares belong to more that one category and they are marked as such, but there is one example (so far) that does not belong to any of those!

second part of the classification system is evaluation method.