LOCAL

Local is an adjective describing something related to a particular place, region, or neighborhood, especially one close to the speaker. It can denote proximity, as in local news or local elections. The term contrasts with global, which refers to the whole world or a system-wide scope. As a noun, 'local' can mean a local resident or a local business; as an adverb, 'locally' describes something done in a local area.

In governance and geography, 'local' refers to levels of government and services closer to residents, such as municipal councils, local ordinances, and local planning. Local economies and communities form around a specific place and are influenced by regional factors, infrastructure, and culture.

In technology, 'local' is used in phrases such as local area network (LAN), local storage, and local variables in programming (as opposed to global variables). Local search lies within a restricted domain, while in optimization the terms local minima or maxima describe points better than neighbors but not necessarily the best global optimum.

In physics and philosophy, locality is the principle that objects are influenced only by their immediate surroundings, with no instantaneous action at a distance. Non-locality is discussed in quantum mechanics. In mathematics, local properties describe behavior in a neighborhood of a point.

Etymology: local derives from Latin localis, from locus "place." The term has appeared in English since the 14th century and has accumulated many compound uses in fields such as geography, law, computing, and science.