township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

is a type of municipality in the

Canadian province Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. They can have either single-tier status or lower-tier status. Ontario has 200 townships that had a cumulative population of 990,396 and an average population of 4,952 in the 2011 Census. Ontario's largest and smallest townships are

Centre Wellington Centre Wellington is a township in south-central Ontario, Canada, located in Wellington County. The primary communities are Elora and Fergus. The area is agricultural but also includes industries such as manufacturing. In the Canada 2016 Cens ...

and Cockburn Island with populations of 26,693 and 0 respectively.

History

Under the former ''Municipal Act, 1990'', a township was a type of local municipality. Under this former legislation, a locality with a population of 1,000 or more could have been incorporated as a township by Ontario's Municipal Board upon review of an application from 75 or more residents of the locality. It also provided that a township could include "a union of townships and a municipality composed of two or more townships". In the transition to the ''Municipal Act, 2001'', these requirements were abandoned and, as at December 31, 2002, every township that: *"existed and formed part of a county, a regional or district municipality or the County of Oxford for municipal purposes" became a lower-tier municipality yet retained its name as a township; and *"existed and did not form part of a county, a regional or district municipality or the County of Oxford for municipal purposes" became a single-tier municipality yet retained its name as a township. The current legislation also provides lower and single-tier municipalities with the authority to name themselves as "townships", or other former municipal status types such as "

cities A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

", "

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

s" or "

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

s", or generically as "municipalities".

Township municipalities in Ontario

Former township municipalities

Notes

References

{{Subdivisions of Ontario

Township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

List

History

Township municipalities in Ontario

Former township municipalities

See also

Notes

References