I think that they were misleading in UK ... but with the change of search near "city center" we could put them back. Is it issue in Norway or some other country? thanks Martin
By following the guidelines in the OSM wiki there are a lot of places that would be classified as hamlets in Norway. Even isolated dwelling as rab points out.
Due to the low population of only 5 million, we do not follow the wiki completely. Cities down to a population of around 40k are set as cities, and town is used on places down to around 5k.