An
apartment (in American and Canadian English) or a
flat (in
British English) is a self-contained
housing unit (a type of residential
real estate) that occupies only part of a
building. Such a building may be called an
apartment building,
apartment complex (in American English),
apartment house (in American English),
block of flats,
tower block,
high-rise or, occasionally
mansion block (in British English), especially if it consists of many apartments for
rent. In Scotland it is called a block of flats or, if it's a traditional sandstone building, a
tenement, which has a pejorative connotation elsewhere. Apartments may be owned by an
owner/occupier, by leasehold tenure or rented by
tenants (two types of
housing tenure).