From the earliest days of sociology, family and community have been central concerns of the discipline. This entry traces the relationship between these aspects of society in simple and in modern societies at both a theoretical and an empirical level. It finds that the dense interpenetration of family and community associated with earlier societies is no longer an indispensable feature of community. Geographical and social mobility, the growth of individualism and the expansion of choice offered by the internet have impacted on the nature of engagement in family and community. Changing orientations in research into family and community are identified. Both family and community remain central values in western cultures, albeit with changing conceptualizations of each.