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| 1 | The purpose of the article is justification of the systemic role of a classical university “with history” in the development of a college town as a special sociocultural phenomenon and the preservation of its cultural identity. The methodological complex, applied in the paper, includes the theory of autopoietic social systems (N. Luhmann); the concept of a traditional university as an open and closed system (M. Lenartowicz); sociocultural (R. Park), cultural (N. Fedotova, T. Ilyina, I. Grevs, M. Kagan) and historical-cultural (K. Kerr) approaches; the concept of the region as a social system (D. Dokuchaev). The paper presents an analysis of the “college town” and “a city with a university” concepts. It formulates the authors’ definition of a college town, describes the key differences between a college town and a city with a university, and demonstrates the main college town characteristics. The article demonstrates that a college town is a complex sociocultural system with a dual status (open/closed), whose identity is based on a classical university “with a history” that provides the functioning of the town’s cultural codes. Understanding a classical university “with a history” as a college town’s system-forming element provides an opportunity to understand the essence of this town type and its specific characteristics. It can be further used as a theoretical justification for the strategy of regional development. The ideas presented in this paper can contribute to the search for an authentic identity for some territorial entities, which is still in a “latent state”. Keywords: college town, classical university “with history”, cultural identity, autopoietic social systems | 1004 | ||||