City symbols vary with the scale and style of the map. When choosing symbols, it is a common error to force large-scale symbols into small-scale maps and thus overburden them. In his classic 1948 text, General Cartography, Erwin Raisz provides guidance that can hardly be improved upon today.

“In the earliest maps, cities are shown by small, pictorial bird’s-eye views. Since the early walled cities were usually round, on small-scale maps their representation was either reduced to more or less circular layout of the wall or was symbolized by a circle. The circle as a city symbol survives up to the present time…” (p.97). “It was customary in early Renaissance maps to designate a city by a small pictorial group of houses. But since this group was very much larger than the size of the city, the exact location of the later was shown by a small circle within the group of houses. In small-scale maps the group of houses was omitted, and only the circle remained.” Today we still use circles, or several concentric circles, whose size and complexity indicate the relative size, population, or importance of the city.

On medium-scale maps where the general extent of a city or town can be shown, it can be represented by crossed lines indicating a street system, even if the pattern does not follow the actual street pattern of the city. Alternatively, the general outline of the city can be represented by a solid or semi-opaque fill.