central locking?

Hey guys, I'm on the forum all the time lookin for helpful info and throwin my 2 cents in when I can help, but I'm wondering if I'm right on "central locking". If I understand correctly central locking is when you can manually lock/unlock the door and all the doors lock or unlock? Its a common thing on some posts here and just wanted to clarify the term. Is it a common feature in European vehicles? Being from the U.S., I had never heard of central locking til this wonderful site.

Hope someone can clarify this for me!!

Central locking = power locks. There are two types. Single point, e.g. Subaru 'till 00, some Volvos and Saabs where you had a switch rather than an actuator in the driver's door, you could only lock the vehicle from the driver's door. Multi-point where both driver, front passenger and sometimes trunk were actuators and had micro-switches to control all the locks. "Slave" actuators have 2 wires and "master" actuators have 5. Also "comfort close" we call it "total close" or as Ford here calls it "global closing". European cars rarely had lock switches although that's changed since 00. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the clarification Howie.