so by way of examples, going to some extremes…

Kent County, Texas is one of the most rural counties in the US. with Jayton hosting it’s county court house. This is a sat photo of Jayton, compliments of google maps:
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Note, that the mile is about 1.25 miles/ 2 km’s north to south and about the same in east west. (at least, as far the structures/housing goes.) to get an idea of what it looks like there, here’s the streetview in front of the court house.

zooming out to kent county, there’s like 5 towns in that entire square, note the distance marker down at the bottom being about 8 km:
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now, compare that to new york city:
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Note, the distance marker at the bottom being about 3 km.

zooming in to roughly the same scale as the photo on jayton… randomly…
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and here’s a few courthouses in brooklyn…
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and the king’s county courthouse on streetview