How do you define a local? How long does it take to become one?

I’ve always considered a local to be someone that was born in that area. I’m a transplant from NE OH to SE NC even though I’ve lived here for 14 years. I may rethink that in the future since all northerners seem to end up in the coastal south.

Somebody who knows the area very well. Doesn’t need a map to get around, knows when places close.

Someone who lives in the area and knows their way around. I would say within a year someone becomes a local, but not necessarily takes on the identification of the state. For instance, where I live, someone who moved here full time might be a local in a year, but might not be called a Floridian nor identify themselves as a Floridian for several years.

When an area feels like home to you then you have become a local.

When a sizeable portion of those already living there know you.

This varies from place to place.
In Maine, you are considered “from away” unless you were born and stayed there your whole life.
In Provincetown Mass, you are considered a “wash ashore” unless born there.
In New England you are a Yankee if born here. If you moved here from somewhere else, you are a Damned Yankee just because you chose to move here.

Unless you have been there your whole life then someone who has will not classify you as a local. Don’t get hung up on titles like this.

In Taos, NM, you have to be hispanic/native american and your family has to go back generations.

My anglo aunt and uncle have property in the area, and as they were seeking local permitting to build, someone suggested at a town council meeting (not sure if it was Taos or a surrounding smaller town) that anyone who wasn’t generational shouldn’t be allow to comment at the meeting.

There’s another story I heard about a rich douchebag who hired locals to build a vacation home, and apparenty he was so offensive that they burned his house down after construction was finished.

https://www.taosnews.com/opinion/my-turn/being-local-doesnt-mean-the-same-thing-to-everyone/article_f9297a75-fa76-53c8-a73a-6e69b039895e.html

https://www.taosnews.com/opinion/my-turn/taose-os-are-defined-by-blood-not-geography/article_afbc2163-ccd4-55fa-9d9d-6adb23fee63d.html

To me, there may be a disparity between being a real local and being local enough that I would ask and trust your directions, advice on restaurants, and other “local” info. As far as trusting someone’s directions, advice on restaurants and local tourist spots, I’d say a year or two for that.

I was going to say that “local” had no technical definition, but I have seen it used in a more technical way, and it always had the loosest, least-strict definition: a local is someone who lives in a place, contrasted with “visitor”.

But obviously in a subjective sense, someone can live somewhere, but be newly arrived, and that doesn’t qualify them as a local in the eyes of, well, locals.

I have a problem with using the term to mean “born there”, as someone who only lived in the place I was born for a few years, and lived in the place I moved to for 30 years. So I can never be “local” to the place I lived for three decades? That’s a bit unfortunate. In terms of being born somewhere, I might use the term “native”.

In either case, I don’t think it’s terribly important and I agree with @Forever_Free. It’s going to vary from place to place and from person to person. With an expat situation, it’s a little clearer. I am obviously not a “local” in Yucatán. I am contrasted with the Spanish-speaking Mexican citizens who are the “locals”. That said, I think I could become a local with time. I guess whether that actually happens will be in the eye of the locals. :)

Before I’d have said it was anyone who knows their way around. Knows people and local history.

Now I’d say it depends on how welcoming the established community is.

Ideally it should be when you live in a community. To vote or run for local politics, you usually only need to live in a community for 6 months.

I think of a local as someone who was born, raised and graduated high-school in the same town or city or county or state. If you moved in to a different state after high-school or college…I would consider you a “local” if you stayed for at least 15 years.