Urban spaces are connected with social functions in various ways: Within these spaces individuals and groups encounter each other, they constitute a framework of social organisation and interact with social practices, they are part of the modes of life and habitus. Yet, social functions also give urban spaces their orientation, they inscribe communication processes specified by situations or institutions, they form vertical, horizontal and relational structures by connecting practices, objects and placings. The contributions, based on the conference of the International Commission for the History of Towns in 2016, analyse these connections between urban spaces and social functions in their different directions (centre and periphery - top and bottom - inside and outside) by means of European examples from late medieval to modern times.