The inner city is the central area of a major city. In the Unite States, United Kingdom and Ireland, the term is often applied to the poorer parts of the city centre and is sometimes used as a euphemism with the connotation of being an area, perhaps a ghetto or slum, where residents are less educated and more impoverished and where there is more crime. Sociologists in these countries sometimes turn this euphemism into a formal designation, applying the term "inner city" to such residential areas rather than to geographically more central commercial districts.