A physical location invested with meaning. A place may be large or small, a city or village, and it may be tightly circumscribed or vague and uncertain. Think of what it means to say, for example, âI have been to Parisâ. Paris is a place and, in saying you have been there, you are saying you have set foot somewhere in the city, but you could scarcely claim to have seen the whole city. And yet one has the feeling one has been âthereâ, that âthereâ being a mixture of oneâs dreams, fantasies, and preconceptions about the city and the actual experience one has. So the Paris one has been to is as much a Paris of the mind as it is an actual city, and that is what makes it memorable and special. The concept of place captures this overlap between the imaginary and empirical dimensions of locations, and argues that the latter is mere space without the former.