The new August issue of Outside magazine ranks the “20 Best Towns in America,” and this year, Washington, D.C. was given top honors, coming in as #1 on the list. The District was honored for the turnaround neighborhoods like Adams Morgan, Chinatown and U Street have seen in the last decade — indeed, the list focuses on communities that have seen “revivals,” and also includes places like Chattanooga, TN, Ithaca, NY, and Crested Butte, CO.

Now, we’re not ones to argue with anyone who wants to say that D.C. is the best — we love our city and wouldn’t bother obsessing over every small detail about what life is like here for residents if we didn’t think it was a great place to live. But we can’t help but notice that most of the other “towns” on this list are much smaller than the District. With a population within the city limits of only about 580,000, we know D.C. itself is a much smaller city than Philadelphia, New York, or Chicago. But the D.C. metro area all together still has the 9th largest metropolitan population in the country, with more than 5.3 million people living in the region. Is it really fair to compare the District of Columbia with someplace like Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with its population of 20,600? Would you ever refer to Washington, D.C. as a “town,” instead of a “city”?

A list of the top 10 best towns from Outside magazine’s August, 2008 issue is after the jump. The full article isn’t available online yet, but you can download a pdf.