Generic name for places like village, town and cities

There is the German word Ort or Ortschaft which is a hypernym for places where people live like

villages
towns
cities

etc.

Is there a correspondent word in English?

I don't want to use location or place because they also represent geographical entities where no people live or even just buildings.

Solution 1:

Settlement is the best I can think of. A collection of dwellings and other amenities that creates a community.

Solution 2:

The exact translation of 'Ortschaft' doesn't exist in English, that is, no single word that will replace 'Ortschaft' in the same contexts, but there are many words that sometimes fit depending.

municipality - a legal notion of an area of living where there is a governing body (mayor/manager, council, aldermen, or the like). A village probably doesn't have this level of management. This word is probably the closest to 'Ortschaft'.
incorporated (city/town/village) - incorporation' signifies that there is some organization, but modifies the more size-specific word.

The other suggestions, settlement, conurbation, built up area, community, all are appropriate in different contexts (a small town or village, a very large metropolitan area, a group of buildings, a group of like minded people, respectively).

City, town, village, incorporated, municipality all have their technical meanings in different localities and jurisdictions. In German , I take it that 'Ort' is more for describing smaller towns (e.g. Munich is probably not considered an Ortschaft).

Solution 3:

The word "city" can refer to any populated area. Places with only a few thousand people are routinely called "cities". I used to live in a town with a population of about 15,000, and the signs on the roads as you approached said "city limits", it was officially called "City of ...", etc. Likewise if you're filling out a form asking for your address and it says street, city, state, zip code, even people who live in the smallest communities rarely hesitate to fill in the name of that community. I've never heard someone ask, "What should I put here? I live in a small town, not a city."

However, "city" is also used to refer specifically to places with particularly large populations, as distinguished from a small town, suburb, or rural area.

So it depends on the context. If you asked someone, "What city do you live in?", people would normally understand you to mean a community of any size. But if you said, "I want to live in a city," people would probably understand you to mean a heavily-populated place. If you asked, "Do you live in a city?", someone who lived in New York or Los Angeles would immediately answer "yes"; someone who lived on a farm would answer "no"; and someone who lived in a mid-size town would probably ask what you meant.

You could say "community", but this is sometimes understood to mean a sub-division within a city or town.

"Populated area" might work, but is awkward for general conversation. It's not normally used to refer to a specific place, like you could say "the city of Boston", but you wouldn't say "the populated area of Boston". (You might say "the populated area of Detroit", to distinguish it from the areas that are empty as the people all move out. :-) But that's another story.)

Update

Ah, given that you say that you just need to know what to call a certain part of an address in a database: I think the simple answer is, What country is this system to be used in? Then see what they routinely call it in that country. I suggest you go to the website of the postal service of the desired country and look for instructions on how to properly address envelope. In the US and Canada, we routinely call this part of the address the "city". In Britain and Singapore, its "town". In Australia, its "suburb". Etc. I suspect if you said "city" or "town" in the context of an address form, people in any English-speaking country would know what you meant.