Külades

Külades is the Estonian inessive plural form of the noun küla, meaning “the villages.” It functions as a locative case indicating that something is located inside or within multiple villages. The singular inessive is külas, meaning “in the village.”

In use, külades appears in descriptive and geographic contexts to specify location across several villages. For example, the sentence Koolid asuvad külades means “The schools are located in the villages.” Another example might describe regional features or services distributed across multiple settlements: Raudteejaamad on külades, which can be translated as “The railway stations are in the villages.”

Külades is not a standalone noun; it is a grammatical form derived from küla. Learners encounter it as part of Estonian morphology rather than as a lexeme with a separate meaning. Related forms include küla (singular, “village”), küladesse (illative plural, “into the villages”), and külas (inessive singular, “in the village”). The plural locative form is used more widely in formal, descriptive, or encyclopedic text to denote intra-village or inter-village locations.

See also: Estonian grammar, the noun küla, locative cases in Estonian, inessive case.