Municipality

A municipality or general-purpose district (see also: special-purpose district) is an administrative region generally composed of a clearly defined area and commonly referring to a city, town, or village government. Municipalities are not necessarily the same as townships. In most countries, this is the smallest administrative subdivision that has its own democratically elected representative leadership.

• In China, a municipality (直辖市 in pinyin: zh�xi�sh�) is a city with equal status to a province: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing
• In Belgium, a municipality (gemeente/commune) is part of a province (provincie/province)
• In Brazil, a municipality (munic�pio) is part of a state (estado)
• In Denmark, a municipality (kommune[?]) is part of a county (amt)
• In Finland, a municipality (kunta/kommun) is part of a province (l��ni/l�n)
• In France, a municipality (commune) is part of a department (d�partement)
• In Germany, a municipality (gemeinde[?]) is part of a district (kreis). Larger entities of the same level are named city (Stadt).
• In the Netherlands, a municipality (gemeente) is part of a province (provincie).
• In Japan, any government other than the Japanese national government is called a municipality.
• In Norway, a municipality (kommune[?]) is part of a county (fylke)
• In the Philippines, a municipality (bayan) is part of a province (lalawigan) and is composed of barangays.
• In Puerto Rico, a municipality (municipio) serves as a second-order administrative division.
• In Spain, the english terms is equivalent to comarca. A comarca is composed by some cityhalls[?] (the cityhall�s territory in Spains is the ) and is smaller than a province.
• In Sweden, a municipality (kommun) is part of a county (l�n).
• In Switzerland, a municipality (commune/Gemeinde/comune[?]) is part of a canton (canton/Kanton/cantone) and defined by cantonal law.
• In Taiwan, a municipality (直轄市 in Wade-Giles: chi-hsia-shih) is a city with equal status to a province: Taipei and Kaohsiung.

See also: Mayor, Mayor-council government, Council-manager government, Political science, Special-purpose district, Subnational entity