Apartment facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

An apartment (called a flat in places like the UK and Australia) is a self-contained home that takes up only part of a larger building. People can either rent apartments from a landlord or own them, like in a condominium. These buildings come in many shapes and sizes, from small houses divided into a few homes to huge towers.

A modern apartment building in San Jose, California, with balconies and colorful designs.

What is an Apartment?

Different Names for Apartments

The word "apartment" is most common in North America. In the UK and Australia, people usually say "flat." Sometimes, especially for fancy or expensive homes, the word "apartment" is used in these countries too.

In some places, "unit" is a general term for both apartments and business offices.

Buildings with Mixed Uses

Some buildings are called "mixed-use." This means they have businesses, like shops, on the lower floors. The upper floors are then used for apartments where people live.

How People Own or Rent Apartments

There are different ways to live in an apartment:

Renting: Most people rent their apartment from a building owner. They pay a monthly fee to live there.
Owning a Condominium: In a condominium (or "condo"), people own their specific apartment unit. They also share ownership of common areas, like hallways or gyms, with other residents. They pay fees for the building's upkeep.
Housing Cooperatives: In a cooperative (or "co-op"), residents own shares in a company that owns the whole building. They don't directly own their apartment, but their shares give them the right to live in a specific unit. They also pay monthly fees for building maintenance.

Apartment Building Sizes

Apartment buildings come in various heights:

High-rise buildings are very tall, multi-story buildings. They are often called "residential towers" or "tower blocks." They became common after elevators were invented.
Mid-rise buildings are usually between 4 and 12 stories tall.
Low-rise buildings have fewer stories, often less than 4. Many low-rise buildings are "walk-ups," meaning they don't have elevators.
Garden apartment buildings are usually one or two stories high. Each apartment often has its own entrance to the outdoors. These buildings often have nice outdoor areas with plants and gardens.

An example of a floor plan for an apartment.

Different Kinds of Apartments

Apartments come in many styles and sizes to fit different needs.

Studio Apartments

The smallest apartments are often called studio apartments, efficiency apartments, or bachelor apartments. They usually have one main room that serves as the living room, dining room, and bedroom. The kitchen is often part of this main room, with a separate bathroom. In Korea, they are sometimes called "one room" apartments.

Garden Apartments

In the US, a garden apartment is a low-rise building with many units and lots of lawn or garden space. These apartments often open directly to the outdoors. Some might even have a garage under each unit. In Chicago, a "garden apartment" can also mean a basement apartment.

In the UK, a garden flat is usually a basement or ground-floor apartment. It often has a view of, or access to, a garden. These were often created by converting the lower floors of large old houses.

Van Tassel Apartments, a garden apartment complex built in 1929 in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Georgian townhouses in London, England. Their basement areas were often turned into garden flats.

Basement and Attic Apartments

A basement apartment is located on the lowest floor of a building, often partly or fully below ground level.
A garret apartment is found in the attic of a building. These often have sloped walls, which can make the space feel smaller. However, they can offer great views and are usually quieter because there are no neighbors above.

Secondary Suites

A secondary suite is a separate living space created within a house. These are sometimes called "in-law apartments," "annexes," or "granny flats" because they might be used by family members. In Canada, many are "basement suites" located below the main house.

Maisonettes

A maisonette is an apartment that has more than one floor, with stairs inside the home connecting them. It usually has its own entrance from outside the building. This design can make apartments feel more like a small house.

Apartments with Two Stories

Most apartments are on one level. However, some, like maisonettes, have two stories connected by internal stairs. Very fancy apartments at the top of buildings, called penthouses, often have multiple stories to feel more spacious and luxurious.

Small Apartment Buildings

A duplex has two separate living units. These can be side-by-side with a shared wall, or one above the other.
A triplex has three separate units.
In some places, like the Sun Belt in the US, you might see dingbats. These are small, boxy apartment buildings from the 1950s and 60s, often built on stilts with parking underneath.

A "dingbat" apartment building called "The Mary & Jane," known for its unique balconies.

Loft Apartments

Loft apartments became popular in the US in the mid-20th century. They are created by converting old industrial buildings, like warehouses or factories, into homes. These apartments are usually very large and open, often attracting artists and musicians. Today, some new buildings are designed to look like these original lofts.

The inside of a loft apartment in Chicago.

Communal Apartments

In Russia, a communal apartment (called a kommunalka) is a room within a larger apartment where residents share a kitchen and bathroom. Several families might live in different rooms but share these common facilities.

Serviced Apartments

A serviced apartment is a residential space that includes regular maid and cleaning services. These apartments often combine the comforts of a luxury apartment with services you might find in a hotel, like housekeeping and laundry.

A serviced apartment in Mumbai, India.

Apartment Facilities

Apartments can be rented furnished (with furniture) or unfurnished. Serviced apartments usually include furniture, kitchen items, and cleaning services.

Laundry facilities might be in a shared room for all residents, or each apartment might have its own. Utilities like water, heat, and electricity can be shared or billed separately. Most apartments include phone connections, and cable TV is often an extra cost. Parking and extra storage space may or may not be included.

On the ground floor, you'll usually find mailboxes for each unit. Many buildings also have a buzzer system so visitors can contact residents. For trash, smaller buildings might use individual bins, while larger ones often have a common dumpster. To keep things clean and quiet, many landlords have rules about smoking or keeping pets.

Apartment Sizes and Entrances

After studio flats, apartments usually have one, two, or three bedrooms. Apartments with more than three bedrooms are less common.

Smaller apartments often have one entrance. Larger ones might have two, perhaps a front door and a back door, or an entrance from a parking garage. These doors can lead directly outside or to a common hallway or lobby inside the building.

A Look Back: Historical Apartments

Apartments are not a new idea! People have lived in multi-family buildings for thousands of years.

Ancient Americas

The Puebloan peoples in what is now the Southwestern United States built large homes with many rooms, some with over 900 rooms, starting around the 10th century.

In the ancient city of Teotihuacan in Mesoamerica, apartments were the main type of housing for its more than 200,000 people. These apartments showed that wealth was shared fairly evenly across the city.

Ancient Rome

Remains of an ancient Roman apartment block from the early 2nd century AD in Ostia Antica, Rome's port.

In ancient Rome, large apartment buildings called insulae housed the middle and lower classes. The ground floors were used for shops and businesses, with living spaces on the upper floors. Some insulae in Roman cities were ten or more stories high.

Ancient and Medieval Egypt

During the medieval period, the Egyptian capital of Fustat (now part of Old Cairo) had many high-rise residential buildings. Some were seven stories tall and could house hundreds of people. In the 11th century, some apartment buildings were described as rising up to fourteen stories, with roof gardens on top!

Yemen's Mudbrick Towers

Mudbrick tower houses in Shibam Hadramawt, Yemen.

The city of Shibam in Yemen is famous for its high-rise apartment buildings, built in the 16th century. These houses are made of mud bricks and rise 5 to 11 stories high. Shibam is sometimes called "Manhattan of the desert" because of its unique skyline.

Ancient China

The Hakka people in southern China built special communal living structures like Weilongwu and Tulou. The Tulou are large, round, fortified earth buildings, often three to five stories high, housing many families together.

Apartments Around the World Today

Apartments are a common way of living in many countries.

England

In London, over half of all homes are flats. Many of these were once large houses that were later divided into separate apartments. After World War II, many tower blocks were built. Some of these have been replaced with newer, lower buildings.

In the late 1800s, living in flats became more popular for middle and upper-class people in London. It was a practical choice as the city grew and maintaining large traditional houses became expensive.

Scotland

A traditional tenement building in Edinburgh, Scotland (1893).

In Scotland, a "tenement" refers to any block of flats that shares a common central staircase and usually doesn't have an elevator. These buildings were, and still are, home to people from all walks of life.

Scottish tenements are typically three to five stories high, built of sandstone or granite. Each entrance within a block is called a close or stair. Residents traditionally shared the responsibility of cleaning common areas. Many older tenements have been renovated to include modern kitchens and bathrooms.

United States

The Chestnut Hill, an apartment house built in 1899 in Newton, Massachusetts.

Apartment buildings on East 57th Street in New York City.

In the US, "tenement" often refers to older, less expensive rental apartment buildings in big cities. Many of these are "walk-ups" without elevators.

In the past, some tenement districts faced challenges with safety and living conditions. People like Upton Sinclair and Jacob Riis worked to improve these conditions, leading to new laws like the New York State Tenement House Act in 1901.

The Dakota (1884) was one of the first luxury apartment buildings in New York City. Later, in the 1950s and 1960s, groundbreaking apartment designs emerged in Chicago, such as the 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments, Marina City, and Lake Point Tower.

Canada

New condominiums in downtown Toronto.

Apartments became very popular in Canadian cities like Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal from the 1950s to the 1970s. Since the 1980s, many multi-unit buildings have been built as condominiums. Today, high-rise apartments and condos are common, giving many major suburbs their own skylines.

Australia

Apartment buildings in Australia are usually managed by a "body corporate," where owners pay a monthly fee for maintaining shared areas. Many apartments are owned through a system called "strata title."

Australia has a more recent history of apartment buildings compared to some other countries. Early apartment buildings appeared in Sydney and Melbourne as land values rose. Kingsclere (1912) in Sydney and The Canterbury (1914) in Melbourne are among the oldest surviving apartment buildings.

After World War II, many Australians preferred detached houses. However, apartment development continued in Sydney and the Gold Coast, Queensland, where waterfront views made apartment living popular. In the 1990s, a trend began in Melbourne to convert old warehouses and office buildings into "loft" style apartments. Today, residential buildings like the Eureka Tower and Q1 are among Australia's tallest.

The skyline of the Gold Coast in Queensland is dominated by apartments.
The Canterbury in St Kilda, Victoria is one of the earliest surviving apartment buildings in Australia.
One Central Park, Sydney, which features vertical hanging gardens and sustainable green design.

South Korea

As of 2019, most Koreans live in apartments. Since the 1980s, the number of apartment residents has grown a lot. Apartments are now the most common type of home in Korea, even in smaller cities and rural areas.

The price of an apartment can vary greatly. Factors like location, the construction company, and the number of homes in the complex play a role. Even within the same building, apartments on higher floors, with good views, or facing south are usually more expensive. Apartments are important assets for middle-class families in Korea and can show a family's success.

An apartment in Songdo International City, Incheon.
A landscape lined with large apartment complexes in Gwangmyeong City.