Talk:Municipality

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Municipality and commune

Is municipality really the proper translation for Gemeinde? "Commune," on the French model, seems more appropriate. john k 22:22, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What is the difference between municipality and commune (subnational entity)? According to our articles, it seems that they are just two different words for the same thing. Maybe commune (subnational entity) should be merged into this article. Chl 19:57, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Let's merge commune (subnational entity) here. Chl 17:17, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

There is a difference between Gemeinde and Municipality or Commune, because the law in French, German or English speaking countries is not the same. And those words has also a meaning according to the local law. Carsrac (talk) 12:05, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

The law among English-speaking countries is not the same. The law among German-speaking countries is not the same. Even within the United States, for example, every one of the 50 states has its own legal definition for what constitutes a "city", a "town", in some of them a "village", and each of them accords its own sets of rights and responsibilities to each of those units. That doesn't mean someone from California can't speak of a city in Pennsylvania as a "city".

Can we not say that Berlin is the capital of Germany because Germans call it their "Hauptstadt", which isn't the same word as "capital", and because Berlin doesn't have exactly the same legal status with respect to its country as Washington or Ottawa or London have with respect to theirs (all three of which are different)?

"Municipality" refers to a very generally defined level of local government. Precisely because the local government infrastructures of all the countries vary so greatly from one another, any term we use to reference them in general has to have a very loose, fuzzy meaning. But we do need to have a generic term to cover them. —Largo Plazo (talk) 14:13, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Not fully correct definition(?)

A municipality ... is an administrative local area generally composed of a clearly defined territory and commonly referring to a city, town, or village government.

It seems to me, correct if I'm wrong, that this definitions is based on US view (see in article the US part). The explanations in many other countries are referring to type of counties vs towns (county as land area where is villages, fields, forest etc vs town which is houses and parks, when defining simplified way) see Belgium, Netherlands, Finland, Sweden etc. --TarmoK 2 July 2005 06:23 (UTC)

Entry on JAPAN states that all governments other than the national government are called municipalities. This is clearly not the case: Prefectures are hugely important political/administrative statutory governing bodies. Randal

Hungary

The article says "In Hungary, a municipality (kistérség) is part of a county (megye)." I don't know if this terminology is correct; when speaking about Hungary in English, municipality is often used as a term that encompasses cities, towns and villages, while kistérség is usually translated as district, the same as the translation for járás (note that a kistérség has importace mainly in statistics only, I'm not even sure they have some kind of local government). – Alensha 寫 词 13:10, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

United Kingdom

At the time of writing the bit about the UK reads as follows: "In the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a municipality is governed by official political borders, such as that of the Greater Belfast area in Northern Ireland. As is the same for the Greater London area and not just the City of London."

I know little about local government in Northern Ireland, but I know how it works in London, and the Greater London level - the Mayor of London and the Greater London Assembly - has power over policing, public transport, strategic planing and a few other bits and pieces but the lower-tier London Boroughs - Westminster, Ealing, etc, have power over most major services, e.g. education, social services, housing and local roads. Describing Greater London as a municipality in the sense described in this article seems a little odd. To be honest, as has been mentioned earlier, this article seems to be exporting the US concept of municipalities worldwide and so doesn't map very successfully to the local government structures in most other countries. 80.229.220.14 19:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

First- / Second-Level Entities

This distinction needs to be defined and motivated (what is exactly the difference? why is it important?), or removed. Chl 11:07, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I removed it. Slovenia and Portugal had their municipalities in the section First-level and in the section Second-level. The combined table allows to state under "subdivision of" the value "the country" to indicate first level. But Slovenia and Portugal both have entities containing multiple municipalities. JelgavaLV (talk) 06:03, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merger

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The merger proposal fails for lack of consensus. See additional comments at Talk:Township
Yellowdesk (talk) 00:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

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Oppose merger of township, as a common English term yet with variants in usage in different locations. It deserves its own article, if for nothing more than to facilitate linking. Probably the others, too; though they might be combined with other similar in function or similarly named entities. Gene Nygaard 14:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Small Text_{Subscript text}

First of all, I support a merger with township, as the two articles cover much the same ground. More importantly, both articles are confusing and incorrect because they use the term municipality incorrectly in various places. A municipality refers to the local government of a town, or an area governed like a town. Rural (or urban) sub-units with small populations, and very limited administrative responsibilities, are not municipalities but parishes or communities, and those expressions should be used to translate commune, Gemeinde, and all the equivalents in other languages. Ehrenkater (talk) 19:11, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Error

The part where it says Netherlands is messed up, since the text below it is about new zealand. somehow a header must have been deleted somewhere. I am too busy to edit it, and not sure if I am really correct, but this needs fixing -77.249.244.103 (talk) 13:16, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

The New Zealand header was missed when the layout of the article was re-designed. I have inserted the header. Thanks for catching this!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:59, June 18, 2009 (UTC)

municipalities in mexico

municipalities in mexico act like counties. there is a municipality seat and surrounding communities. just like a counties. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.25.15.158 (talk) 21:54, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I presume you are talking about the United States concept of county, not the European concept. In Europe, a county is normally a second-level administrative unit, and is subdivided into municipalities. Skinsmoke (talk) 20:51, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Seeing as American and Mexican states are comparable to European countries in size, it's understandable that countries as large as the USA and Mexico would be subdivided into states first. The states, geographically similar to European countries, are then further subdivided. In the US, these subdivisions are usually called counties, making them equivalent to what you're discussing. In Mexico, they are called municipios. A Mexican municipio is more akin to an American (and European) county than it is to an American municipality. 98.221.141.21 (talk) 17:47, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Urgent urban renewal

This article is completely unreferenced.

I have serious doubts about the lower level / first level definitions by country. Other editors have voiced similar doubts. The problem comes from an attempt of mapping the generic meaning of municipality into a specific context of another nation.

• Merriam-Webster defines municipality as "1 : a primarily urban political unit having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. 2 : the governing body of a municipality." Other encyclopedias come to similar conclusions. We can't attach another meaning to it when translating it to another country.
• Now, pull out a dictionary. If it does its job right, it will say that "municipality" can mean anything from a village to a city, and even a municipal government.
• My English-German dictionary faithfully translates municipality to anything from "Gemeinde" (village, parish) to "Stadtverwaltung" (city government).
• However, this article claims that ..
  • In Austria, a municipality (Gemeinde) is part of a district (Bezirk), which is in turn part of a state (Bundesland).
  • In Germany, a municipality (Gemeinde) is part of a district (Kreis). Larger entities of the same level are called towns (Stadt). In less populated regions, municipalities are often put together into collective municipalities (Verbandsgemeinde)
  • In Switzerland, a municipality (commune/Gemeinde/comune) is part of a canton (canton/Kanton/cantone) and defined by cantonal law.
• This is all true. But it's only partially true. It gives the impression that in all three countries, municipality means "Gemeinde" (village,parish.) In reality, municipality can mean anything from a village to a city in all three countries, or even a city government. In the German language, there exists a complementary generic term, "Ort". Literally, it means "place", but within that context, it is as generic as municipality. It does not encompass the governing body of a municipality, that would be "Ortsverwaltung."
• I checked some other countries I am familiar with, and they are likewise problematic. For instance, the Chinese direct-controlled municipalities (直辖市 in pinyin: zhíxiáshì) are correctly reflected as cities ("shi" means city in Chinese and Japanese), but the reverse translation into "municipality" has problems. They are cities with the rank of a state/province, just like Berlin or Vienna. In their own language, they all are called "cities."
• Ì assume other countries have similar problems, as the comments above attest.

I strongly recommend removing the country-specific explanations, unless they can be properly sourced. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, so translations into other languages are out. -- BsBsBs (talk) 05:59, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Largest Municipality

"The largest municipalities can be found in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Greenland, and Iceland."

This statement contradicts the Wikipedia article on Chongqing. The article on Chongqing states it is 'possibly the worlds largest municipality by both size and population". At 31,000,000 people I suspect this is probably right, at least for population. 122.59.243.157 (talk) 02:53, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Reference or perish

Folks, this article is going down the drain. It is full of information, but there is not a single reference. The introduction is mostly pure fantasy. The long lists of upper and lower level municipalities all over the world are likewise unreferenced and usually fall into the trap of translating the purely generic meaning of “municipality” into a national context. The result is humbug.

So “in most countries, a municipality is the smallest administrative subdivision to have democratically elected representation?” Citation needed. There are many countries and municipalities on this planet that don’t have a democratically elected representation. Some of the world’s most populous municipalities fall in this category.

So most municipalities “fall into one of two categories: (1) a single settlement, a city, town, or village, and (2) a land area similar to a township that may contain multiple settlements, or even just part of one, such as a city's borough. A town municipality is typically governed by a mayor and a council, while others may have appointed prefects?” Where did that come from? Citation, please.

Merriam Webster defines municipality as “a primarily urban political unit having corporate status and usually powers of self-government.”

The Free Dictionary concurs: A municipality is “a political unit, such as a city, town, or village, incorporated for local self-government.”

Wiktionary agrees: A municipality is “a district with a government that typically encloses no other governed districts; a borough, city, or incorporated town or village.”

That’s it. There is not more to a municipality. It's a generic term. It can be used from a tiny hamlet (if it has a local government) all the way to a city bigger than many countries.

The fact that the article is completely unreferenced has been brought up quite a while ago. See above. This was met with silence.

The assertion that “the largest municipalities can be found in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Greenland, and Iceland” has been challenged (and rightfully so.) The challenge has been ignored. The World's largest municipalities by population are in China, Pakistan, and India. The World's largest municipalities by surface area are in China, Brazil, Australia, and Canada.

This article is largely a work of fantasy. It needs to be cleaned up, referenced, or deleted. Putting it out of its misery would probably be the best solution, as the only thing of substance left after a thorough cleanup and removal of unreferenced fiction would most likely be: “A municipality is a primarily urban political unit having corporate status and usually powers of self-government.” And since Wikipedia is no dictionary, we can dispense with the article. BsBsBs (talk) 06:52, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The easiest way to improve this article is to follow the country-specific links and borrow the references from wherever they led you to. If the target article has no references, then the line can be marked as uncited and eventually removed. While the issues outlined above are serious and real, nuking the whole article seems to be akin to shooting a person over a severe toothache :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 16, 2010; 14:06 (UTC)

I've tried that on a few and it leads to nothing. We have two major problems:

1.) The intro is unreferenced. I can find no references for the assertions made. And some of the assertions are plain wrong.

2.) The mapping of "municipality" into other countries and their languages rests on the fallacious assumption that these countries have their own interpretation of "municipality." They don't. They use a term of their language and work with that. "Municipality" is an English word, and it means “a primarily urban political unit having corporate status and usually powers of self-government.” From an English speaking perspective, there are no differences between municipalities in Albania and Zambia, because all will have "primarily urban political units having corporate status and usually powers of self-government.” From an Albanian perspective, the country may have a "bashki" or "komunë," but it has no "municipality" in its own language. Or maybe it does. But then that Albanian word needs to mean “a primarily urban political unit having corporate status and usually powers of self-government.”

I have tried to follow some country specific links and either found nothing, or more nonsense. For instance, the German entry references "Gemeinde" which links to Municipalities of Germany. This likewise unreferenced article says "Municipalities (Gemeinde) are the lowest level of territorial division in Germany." True for "Gemeinde." Not true for "municipality." Berlin, the capital of Germany with the status of a state, is a municipality. The country specific entries are full of mistakes. It says that "in the People's Republic of China, a direct-controlled municipality is a city with equal status to a province: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing." True. But it gives the impression as if each municipality in China is a direct controlled municipality. It does that by faking "see Municipality of China" which leads to Direct-controlled municipality. China is full of other municipalities which are not direct controlled.

In Taiwan, even bigger lies are perpetrated. Supposedly, in Taiwan, "a municipality is a city with equal status to a province: Taipei and Kaohsiung. (see Municipalities of Taiwan)." Again, a Direct-controlled municipality has the status of a province, hence the term, the others don't. And the list goes on.

This is more than severe toothache. This is cancer. BsBsBs (talk) 20:18, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Good points, yes. But we still don't shoot cancer patient even if they are terminal :)

Take the intro. Why not make it specific to the English-speaking countries (ref the entries by country, if necessary), and mention that the term may be used in a different sense in other, not-English-speaking countries? Those other countries can then be listed in a separate section, with the caveats specifically mentioned. Countries where the entity type terms are not translated directly as "municipality" can then be sacked.

This, of course, is all going to be complicated and not as easy as deleting the article outright. What this article needs is individual attention from each applicable WikiProject. I can hardly imagine any one person who would be able to bring any semblance of order to this page after an individual effort...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 16, 2010; 21:20 (UTC)

I hate deleting articles. Sometimes, I dream of creating a PROD rescue site. I never deleted an article or nominated one for deletion. But I’m afraid this article is beyond salvage. It rests on two erroneous assumptions:

1.) The article assumes that a municipality is something special. It is not. "Municipality" is a generic term for an administrative local entity. A municipality can be anything from a village to a city. Just like “motor vehicle” can be anything on wheels (and not on rails) with an engine.

2.) The article assumes that “municipality” means something different in different countries. It does not. Sure, a “motor vehicle” is an F150 in the USA, a Mercedes S-Class in Germany, and a Hilux with a machine gun in Somalia. All true. But the fact remains that in all countries, a motor vehicle is anything on wheels (and not on rails) with an engine.

Correct these two erroneous and unreferenced assumptions, and the article evaporates. Just look at the talk entries. Nearly every entry finds fault. Nearly every fault is ignored.

Truly translating “municipality” into other languages would be as ridiculous as revealing the astounding fact that motor vehicle means “Kraftfahrzeug” in German. Or maybe only in Germany, who knows.

No, the terminology is the same in Austria and in the German-speaking part of Switzerland!47.215.180.7 (talk) 16:18, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

If we want to keep the article, then all the upper-level and lower-level fantasy has to go. The country typical entries have to go. The article will be a short article, saying what it is, and that it can be anything from West Hampton Dunes, pop. 11, to Chongqing, pop 32 million, or thereabouts. BsBsBs (talk) 06:28, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Ironically, we do have an article on motor vehicle, as well as Article Rescue Squadron :)

My point is that while you are right about the term "municipality" being specific to each country (in Russia, for example, it is not even an administrative division), I still disagree that the article's premise is wrong. The lead sure needs to be re-written, that much is true, and the individual entries need attention, but the concept itself is quite encyclopedic. Take your example on motor vehicles. Different countries define motor vehicles differently, and many even have regulations as to what constitutes a "motor vehicle". These distinctions, however, are hardly encyclopedic material. Not so with municipalities. They, too, are subject to different regulations in different countries, but they do constitute encyclopedic material. Russian encyclopedias will have detailed articles about what a "municipality" is in Russia, German encyclopedias will have detailed articles about what a "municipality" is in Germany, Somali encyclopedias will have... you get the drift. And since our job is to be a collection of all human knowledge, the country-specific details about the municipalities sure qualify. Editing, yes, the article needs lots of that, and it will probably become much shorter, too, but sacking it, no, that's not a good approach.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 17, 2010; 14:49 (UTC)

I'm German and I can tell you that a German encyclopedia will not have an entry for municipality. Try it: http://wortschatz.uni-leipzig.de/ It has entries for Gemeinde, Markt, Stadt etc. (Which are all "municipalities.") I am NOT saying that the term "municipality" is specific to every country. "Municipality" is an English term, with a certain meaning. Saying that "municipality" means this in that country and that in this country is wrong. Municipality means “a primarily urban political unit having corporate status and usually powers of self-government.” This English meaning does not change. Try set theory: Incorporated villages, towns with an administration, cities with a city government are all subsets of "municipality." Sidney as a whole is no municipality, because it consists of independent Local Government Areas (LGAs) which are municipalities. Greater London is a municipality, because it has a municipal government. Lagos is no municipality, because it is subdivided and has no common government. West Hampton Dunes is a municipality (has government.) Westhampton Beach is a municipality (has government.) Westhampton is no municipality. Has no government. Belongs to Southampton Township. The village where I was born in Germany used to be a municipality, because it had its own mayor. Now it's no municipality, because it had been swallowed by the city nearby. Singapore is a municipality and a country. Tiny Andorra is a country, but no municipality, because it is subdivided into parishes, which are. You can do this exercise in any country. The meaning of municipality does not change. BsBsBs (talk) 18:33, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see your point. Of course non-English-speaking countries would not have an entity called "municipality" (i.e., an entity described by an English word). Many, however, would have entities the terms for which can perfectly well be translated as "municipality" in English (Russia is one example, even though the Russian definition of municipality is at great odds with the English definition you provided). And, of course, different kinds of municipalities exist. Herding all possible varieties under the roof of one English definition (which, by the way, also differs from one English-speaking country to another, as well as can have different historic meanings) is a little strange. It looks as if you are under the impression that if any foreign entity does not fall under your English definition of a "municipality", it should not be covered here at all.

There's no arguing that in its present condition the lead of the article is unacceptable. However, it does not mean that a better lead cannot be written. You seem to be arguing that is is nearly impossible to clean this article up and still have anything of value remaining. I disagree.

By the way, it'd be really nice if someone else reading this also posted a comment. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 17, 2010; 19:06 (UTC)

I have been monitoring this discussion and agree that the article needs to be improved with references, and agree that it should not be deleted. I'm going to do my part by improving and referencing the summary of municipalities as they relate to Canada. I am unable to do the same for other countries as I am not familiar with how municipalities are defined in other countries. Hopefully editors of other countries will follow suit, possibly through engagement of past editors of this article that made changes related to specific countries or notification on the respective country notice boards. It may take a day or more before I complete my Canada contribution as I have to rectify known errors in other articles that are incorrect before wikilinking them in the forthcoming Canada contributions. I feel this needs to be done first to minimize downstream controversy and remove contradictory content. Hwy43 (talk) 19:25, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Hwy. This is exactly what I was talking about—if we get one editor per each country line to take care of just that line, the end result might just turn out pretty decent. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); November 17, 2010; 19:59 (UTC)

Before we delve into country-specific municipalities, we need to define the meaning of "municipality." Supposedly, it has different meanings in different English-speaking countries. If it does, then this would be a good start for the intro. The trouble is, I can't find substantially different definitions. They all pretty much say the same. Don't fall into the translation trap. As much as I can tell, "municipality" is a generic term, encompassing anything from a tiny village to a city of 32 million. That gives you a wide latitude of translation. Translated back into English, it can - if you are not careful - produce the impression that municipality has different meanings in different countries. If you are careful, you pick a likewise generic term (if there is one) for your translation that encompasses the same generic meaning of an independent local administrative unit. But then we are in the realm of "Wikipedia is no dictionary." You also will have serious reference problems. As the reference for each country is most likely in its own language, it needs to be translated back into English - which produces mistakes. Who will check all these references? I speak several languages. I lived around the world and in extremely diverse cultures. I write professionally in German and English. I'm professionally involved with demography. But truth be told, I'm not even sure of the proper unambiguous translation of "municipality" into German. In Districts of Germany, there is a never ending discussion whether a "Kreis" should be translated as "district" or "county." At the same time, nobody is bothered by the hilarious introduction of "This article is about the "Circles" (Kreise) of Germany." Sure, a "Kreis" can also mean "circle" in German, but nobody thinks of a shape with an equidistant radius in this context. Let's not fall in the same trap and produce more hilarity. BsBsBs (talk) 04:32, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The material about "township" is absurd in many respects. A township is a unit of surveying in most of the United States. A township is generally a square six miles by six miles (36 "sections"), excepting in northeastern Ohio (settled earlier), where it is five miles by five miles (25 "sections"). In either case, a section is a square one mile by one mile = one square mile = 640 acres, but with some small deviation due to the curvature of the Earth.47.215.180.7 (talk) 16:18, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Sanitation Department

This article did not have a single reference. It did not even have a reflist. It is a municipality ruled by anarchy. We can’t just make things up. I have edited and referenced the beginning. The wild and often contradicting sprawl clears up once sources are used. As mentioned long ago (see above) I still I have serious problems with the unreferenced rest. The theory that some countries use “municipality” as a lower level structure and some as an upper level is completely unreferenced. This sometimes leads to wild theories that are without foundation. I fail to see the sense of defining “municipality” for a country that does not have the term “municipality” in its own language. If editors insist on country-specific municipalities beyond countries that use the English word “municipality” as part of their legal framework, then please furnish references for each entry. Unreferenced entries can and will be deleted. Thank you. BsBsBs (talk) 07:52, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Extreme insistence on references when the article is virtually a linkfarm to articles where the points are elaborated is not appropriate. Rather, this situation calls for a synthesis. Realistically, unless someone happens to dig up some textbook on municipal administration, it is unlikely that "general" references would immediately appear. --vuo (talk) 10:40, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

"Extreme insistence on reference?" The article had NONE. Removing a reference doesn't help. If Merriam-Webster says a municipality is "a primarily urban political unit having corporate status and usually powers of self-government" then Merriam-Webster defines a municipality as "a primarily urban political unit having corporate status and usually powers of self-government." If this is not true, then the edit needs a reference.

The "municipality" is the "motor vehicle" of local administration. It is a catch-all for the many permutations of local political units around the world. Defining it further, and giving it country-specific meanings would be akin to saying "in the United States, half of the motor vehicles are trucks", "in Germany, most of the motor vehicles are made by Volkswagen, whereas in Japan, they are made by Toyota", "in India, most of the motor vehicles have two wheels", "in Afghanistan, Sudan an Yemen, motor vehicles are generally Toyota Hilux with rear-mounted machine gun, whereas in Libya, the motor vehicle with rear-mounted machine gun is now mostly of Chinese provenience."

A synthesis is expressly disallowed: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources. This would be a synthesis of published material to advance a new position, which is original research." What we have here, is gross synthesis devoid of reliable sources.

A wikilink is not allowed as a reference, and does not obviate the need for a reference. For instance, the fact that there is an entry for Municipalities of Mexico, does not prove the wild theory that a municipality can refer to several cities, towns or villages.

A municipality is not synonymous with populated place. A populated place can be a municipality if it has its own municipal government, but more often than not, it is not. BsBsBs (talk) 19:16, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Dubious

I don't believe that the reference provided here supports the previous sentence, ie "Types of municipalities within Canada include cities, district municipalities, municipal districts, municipalities, parishes, rural municipalities, towns, townships, villes, and villages among others" While it may be true that there may be examples in Canada of municipal villages and parishes etc, this reference is simply a list of Census subdivisions. I don't believe that these necessarily have anything to do with whether or not the areas are municipalities or not. Derek Andrews (talk) 13:09, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

See the first footnote at the bottom of page 5 of the reference, which states the following:

1. Census subdivision (CSD): a term applying to municipalities (as determined by provincial legislation) or their equivalents (e.g., Indian reserves, Indian settlements). In Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and British Columbia, census subdivisions have been created by Statistics Canada, in cooperation with the provinces, as equivalents for municipalities.

Those listed as examples are then extracted from Table A on pages 7 and 8. Hwy43 (talk) 17:28, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, I see that now, but my concern is in what manner are they equivalent? Do they have any level of self governance and taxation, or are they just convenient boundaries for the purpose of gathering statistics? Derek Andrews (talk) 20:26, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Those that have convenient boundaries for the purpose of gathering statistics appear to be certain census subdivisions within Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and British Columbia per the footnote above from the reference. The level of self governance and taxation for those census subdivisions that are officially municipalities will vary by province and territory according to the applicable legislative documents.

I wonder if there is something on your mind behind this discussion triggered by the recent discussion at Talk:Unincorporated area#Changes to lead (maybe as it relates to Nova Scotia). I might be incorrect but if I am correct, can you elaborate? Hwy43 (talk) 06:50, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Based on your last reply, I'm going to remove the dubious tag on the article. In the meantime, I look forward to your reply to the last post. Hwy43 (talk) 03:14, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. I certainly did get here from Unincorporated area. I was trying to get a more global viewpoint of what municipality means, and noticed this, which is really just a minor side issue. Having read this document again, I still find it ambiguous, and feel it takes a leap of faith to think that it proves the listed community types are necessarily real municipalities. I will try to find better references for each type of munuipality listed in the text. Derek Andrews (talk) 15:08, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Column formatting

I've added a template cleanup-reorganize to section Municipalities by country because its the best I could think of. Look at the Notes column formatting for Brazil, Chile, and Portugal for example. Making this column wider would help, but not enough. The Notes column is essentially how 'municipality' is defined in the enclosing political jurisdiction, and there can be considerable detail, a lot of which isn't included here. If this were a printed document, it wouldn't waste all that white space. Maybe there should be a separate full page width Notes section below the table with an entry for each relevant definition of municipality. Sbalfour (talk) 18:23, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

sp " municiaplity" / municipality

19 hits for this spelling in WP.GinAndChronically (talk) 04:52, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

"municpality" 24 hits in WPGinAndChronically (talk) 04:55, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

What is the meaning of the above obscure posts? Hwy43 (talk) 05:42, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Sanitation Dept. revisited

The "Municipalities by country" section is completely unreferenced. I had noted this many years ago (see talk above) and nothing happened. We have no way of checking whether these "by country" statements are true.

I have put a big "reference" needed section on top of the article. After waiting for four years for improvements, I will wait another month. After that, all unreferenced entries will be removed.

Also, Sbalfour noted months ago that some notes have swelled to article length. This is blowing the table apart. Once references are supplied, please bring the notes down to a few words. Use links, and, well, references. Obese notes will also be removed once the month is over.

I do not think that these by country list are necessary at all. As repeatedly noted, "municipality" is a generic term that describes a lower level administrative entity. It does so all around the world. Wikipedia is not a dictionary. BsBsBs (talk) 14:29, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Let's not wait another month. We've waited three years already. Blow it away and we can diligently enforce unsourced additions in the wake of the removal so that the article doesn't run away on itself again. Hwy43 (talk) 18:42, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I just love it when people are determined to be current in a work that is never ending; that is why the world will never end--no one to process the paper work. I hope that goes for any word that is being used even if misspelled to represent "municipality". All that happens with a wake is disturbance of the surface and those resulting squiggly lines on the ceiling and walls from the reflection of the light. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GinAndChronically (talk • contribs) 10:50, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

IMHO, the country list is useful. When one would like to compare local government in various countries, one could check all 'administrative division of ...' articles, but then one also gets information about regional government. This list (at least ideally) gives information about the lowest or local tier of government worldwide, since the usual meaning of municipality is that it is a local entity.

There may be some special cases like

• Portugal where the freguesia is even lower (here 'municipio' is translated as municipality because they are cognates, although it would more properly called a district);
• Large cities in many countries which have the same status as a whole province or even a federal state (for example Hamburg, Kiev, London).

But generally speaking, this is all not very problematic as long as the list gives correct information about local government.

Now the reference problem. For most countries, the list links to one or more detailed articles. Although Wikipedia in itself cannot be a source for itself, if the target articles are properly referenced, I think that would be enough. Bever (talk) 23:37, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

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No source - it is to be distinguished (usually) from the county

Removed: "It is to be distinguished (usually) from the county, which may encompass rural territory or numerous small communities such as towns, villages and hamlets." 77.191.251.111 (talk) 08:29, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Municipalities by country

Dropped unsourced content in this tabular section, which had been been tagged as unsourced since 2014. I have serious doubts about whether this section is appropriate here at all, as Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and in general, this sort of information is not appropriate for an encyclopedia in this format. Possibly the content could be transwikified to Wiktionary. Certainly there's nothing wrong with having per-country sections about municipalities in other parts of the world, the way it is done in Village, Town, or City, and some of the information in the table rows could be moved to the appropriate country subsection in the article. In my opinion, the section Municipality#Terms in various countries should be changed to #By country, analogous to the way it's done in section Town#By country. In that section, information about the term in the local language could be included, in the context of other information about municipalities in that country. The remaining information from the Municipality#Municipalities by country table could be merged into that section. Mathglot (talk) 18:56, 20 August 2021 (UTC)