A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence (normally in London) of someone whose main or largest residence was a country house. History Historically, a townhouse was the city residence of a noble or wealthy family, who would own one or more country houses in which they lived for much of the year. From the 18th century, landowners and their servants would move to a townhouse during the social season (when major balls took place). Europe In the United Kingdom, most townhouses are terraced. Only a small minority of them, generally the largest, were detached, but even aristocrats whose country houses had grounds of hundreds or thousands of acres often lived in terraced houses in town. For example, the Duke of Norfolk owned Arundel Castle in the country, while his London house, Norfolk House, was a terraced house in St James's Square over wide. North America In the United States and Canada, a townhouse has two connotations. The older predates the automobile and denotes a house on a small footprint in a city, but because of its multiple floors (sometimes six or more), it has a large living space, often with servants' quarters. The small footprint of the townhouse allows it to be within walking or mass-transit distance of business and industrial areas of the city, yet luxurious enough for wealthy residents of the city. Townhouses are expensive where detached single-family houses are uncommon, such as in New York City, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Montreal, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. Rowhouses are similar and consist of several adjacent, uniform units originally found in older, pre-automobile urban areas such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, Richmond, Virginia, Charleston, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia and New Orleans, but now found in lower-cost housing developments in suburbs as well. A rowhouse is where there is a continuous roof and foundation, and a single wall divides adjacent townhouses, but some have a double wall with inches-wide air space in between on a common foundation. A rowhouse will generally be smaller and less luxurious than a dwelling called a townhouse. The name townhouse or townhome was later used to describe non-uniform units in suburban areas that are designed to mimic detached or semi-detached homes. Today, the