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I'm looking for a word that describes the entire region of land on which a company or organization resides. For example:

"Make sure to not smoke any cigarettes while on Boeing's ___!"

I've heard the term campus being used to this effect, but this has the inherent problem of being ambiguous: is Boeing perhaps a university, then?

Are there any alternatives? Headquarters isn't the connotation I'm necessarily trying to convey, and the phrase "Boeing's grounds" just sounds awkward.

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5

While campus is normally defined as "the grounds and buildings of a university, college, or school", M-W Unabridged notes that campus can generally be used to refer to "any grounds that resemble a campus."

Large tech companies like Intel, Microsoft, and the like often use campus to refer to their premises, e.g., "Intel's Folsom campus is the largest in California."

So saying something like

Make sure to not smoke any cigarettes while on Boeing's campus.

is perfectly reasonable.

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    +1 Campus is used in many contexts besides that of a university... especially when talking about the "grounds" of a private sector company. – Alan Carmack Apr 7 '16 at 17:43
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The word I would use would be premises.

OED sense 3b of premises.

In pl. In extended use. A house or building together with its grounds, outhouses, etc., esp. a building or part of a building that houses a business. Now also occas. with sing. concord.

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  • This is correct but i think a lot of people would take "premises" to mean "inside the building/buildings", so the No Smoking sign might not work as well as you'd hope. – Max Williams Apr 7 '16 at 16:11
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    @Max Williams 1 I will attach OED sense 3b, to my answer. It accords entirely with my own understanding. – WS2 Apr 7 '16 at 17:15
  • I wasn't saying that's not correct,(I said it was correct), i just meant that a lot of people don't know that premises includes the outdoor area, so that you would have a lot of conversations like "Excuse me, smoking's not allowed on company premises." "I'm not in the premises, i'm outside". "Actually premises includes the outdoor area." "Are you sure? I thought it just meant inside". "Sigh (reaches for dictionary"). – Max Williams Apr 8 '16 at 12:32
2

You could use "Site", which includes the indoor and outdoor areas, although this tends to be associated with building works.

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1

The only word that came to my mind was compound.

Boeing's compound:

ˈkɒmpaʊnd/
noun
noun: compound; plural noun: compounds

an open area enclosed by a fence, for example around a factory or large house or within a prison.

I was looking for a way to link google's definition, as it includes it way deep in it. If anyone can help me with editing it, feel free!

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    The downside of compound is that it has connotations of a closed-off, self-contained area, which doesn't necessarily describe the open, landscaped office parks that characterize many large companies' facilities today. When compound appears on the news in these parts, it is invariably some sort of dangerous quasi-fortress: a prison, a white separatist camp, a cult settlement. Then again, who am I to say a corporation's offices never feel like any of those three? – choster Apr 7 '16 at 18:46
  • I agree, "compound" sounds like somewhere that is heavily secured, like an army base. – Max Williams Apr 8 '16 at 12:30
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I would say "Make sure to not smoke any cigarettes while on Boeing property," changing the possessive to an adjective. But to my ears, "Boeing's grounds" sounds perfectly OK. Also, "campus" usually does mean a university, but Boeing itself call its grounds a "campus" (http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/aviationservices/flight-services/training/seattle_siteguide_12_9.pdf), and this is not uncommon (http://www.janssen.com/us/contact-us, for another example).

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  • I think property is the best suggestion, as it's not an unusual use of a word (unlike campus) and everyone would intuitively know that you meant the indoors and outdoors parts. – Max Williams Apr 8 '16 at 12:35

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