page_title: Apartment
section_title: By country
hierarchical_section_title: Apartment / Terminology / By country
caption_attribution_description: Suomi: Kerrostalo Kuopiossa
context_page_description: An apartment, or flat, is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building, generally on a single storey. There are many names for these overall buildings, see below. The housing tenure of apartments also varies considerably, from large-scale public housing, to owner occupancy within what is legally a condominium, to tenants renting from a private landlord.
context_section_description: In American English, the distinction between rental apartments and condominiums is that while rental buildings are owned by a single entity and rented out to many, condominiums are owned individually, while their owners still pay a monthly or yearly fee for building upkeep. Condominiums are often leased by their owner as rental apartments. A third alternative, the cooperative apartment building (or "co-op"), acts as a corporation with all of the tenants as shareholders of the building. Tenants in cooperative buildings do not own their apartment, but instead own a proportional number of shares of the entire cooperative. As in condominiums, cooperators pay a monthly fee for building upkeep. Co-ops are common in cities such as New York, and have gained some popularity in other larger urban areas in the U.S.
  In British English the usual word is "flat", but apartment is used by property developers to denote expensive 'flats' in exclusive and expensive residential areas in, for example, parts of London such as Belgravia and Hampstead. In Scotland, it is called a block of flats or, if it is a traditional sandstone building, a tenement, a term which has a negative connotation elsewhere.
  In India, the word flat is used to refer to multi-storey dwellings that have lifts.
  Australian English and New Zealand English traditionally used the term flat (although it also applies to any rental property), and more recently also use the terms unit or apartment. In Australia, a 'unit' refers to flats, apartments or even semi-detached houses. In Australia, the terms "unit", "flat" and "apartment" are largely used interchangeably. Newer high-rise buildings are more often marketed as "apartments", as the term "flats" carries colloquial connotations. The term condominium or condo is rarely used in Australia despite attempts by developers to market it.
  In South African English, an apartment is usually a single level rental area that is a part of a larger building and can be entered from inside the building through a separate door leading off either a wind tunnel or entrance hall/lobby that is shared with other occupants of the building.
  In Malaysian English, flat often denotes a housing block of two rooms with walk-up, no lift, without facilities, typically five storeys tall, and with outdoor parking space, while apartment is more generic and may also include luxury condominiums.
  In Japanese English loanwords (Wasei-eigo), the term apartment (apaato) is used for lower-income housing and mansion (manshon) is used for high-end apartments; but both terms refer to what English-speakers regard as an apartment. This use of the term mansion has a parallel with British English's mansion block, a term denoting prestigious apartment buildings from the Victorian and Edwardian, which usually feature an ornate facade and large, high-ceilinged flats with period features. Danchi is the Japanese word for a large cluster of apartment buildings of a particular style and design, typically built as public housing by government authorities. See Housing in Japan.
caption: An apartment house in Kuopio, Finland
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "VG120,D705", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "314", "Image YResolution": "314", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Version 1.0", "Image DateTime": "2012:06:12 16:43:16", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "852", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 37, 0, 1, 0, 20, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5680", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10796", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1250", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:06:12 16:43:16", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:06:12 16:43:16", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "297/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "47/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1536", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "5556", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "26", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}