Municipal Competition League

A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.

The term ''municipality'' may also mean the governing body of a given municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district.

The term is derived from French and Latin . The English word ''municipality'' derives from the Latin social contract (derived from a word meaning "duty holders"), referring to the Latin communities that supplied Rome with troops in exchange for their own incorporation into the Roman state (granting Roman citizenship to the inhabitants) while permitting the communities to retain their own local governments (a limited autonomy).

A municipality can be any political jurisdiction, from a sovereign state such as the Principality of Monaco, to a small village such as West Hampton Dunes, New York.

The territory over which a municipality has jurisdiction may encompass
* only one populated place such as a city, town, or village
* several such places (e.g., early jurisdictions in the U.S. state of New Jersey (1798–1899) as townships governing several villages, municipalities of Mexico, municipalities of Colombia)
* only parts of such places, sometimes boroughs of a city, such as the 34 municipalities of Santiago, Chile.

Political powers

Powers of municipalities range from virtual autonomy to complete subordination to the state. Municipalities may have the right to tax individuals and corporations with income tax, property tax, and corporate income tax, but may also receive substantial funding from the state. In some European countries, such as Germany, municipalities have the constitutional right to supply public services through municipally-owned public utility companies.

Terms in various countries

Municipality

Terms cognate with "municipality", mostly referring to territory or political structure, are Spanish ' (Spain) and ' (Chile), Catalan ', Portuguese .

* In Brazil, municipalities are the local governments, established through state legislations. They are the smallest territorial divisions holding administrative and legislative powers in the following decrescent order: Federation/Union > State > Municipality. Colloquially, the local population uses the terms ''municipality'' and ''city'' interchangeably.

Communes

In many countries, terms cognate with "commune" are used, referring to the community living in the area and the common interest. These include terms:

* in Romance languages, such as French ' (France, French-speaking areas of Belgium and Switzerland, French-speaking countries of Africa, e.g. Benin), Italian ', Romanian ', and Spanish ' (Chile);
* in Germanic languages such as German ' (in political parlance), Swedish ', Faroese ', Norwegian, Danish ';
* the more remote cognates ' in Dutch, ' in Luxembourgish and in German (the official term);
* Finnish '.
* Ukrainian '.
* and Polish '.
The same terms may be used for church congregations or parishes, for example, in the German and Dutch Protestant churches.

Other terms

In Greece, the word () is used, also meaning 'community'; the word is known in English from the compound ''democracy'' (rule of the people).

In some countries, the Spanish term ', referring to a municipality's administration building, is extended via synecdoche to denote the municipality itself. In Moldova and Romania, both ''municipalities'' ('' municipiu''; urban administrative units) and ''communes'' (; rural units) exist, and a commune may be part of a municipality.

In many countries, comparable entities may exist with various names.

English-speaking

*In Australia, the term local government area (LGA) is used in place of the generic municipality. Here, the "LGA Structure covers only incorporated areas of Australia. Incorporated areas are legally designated parts of states and territories over which incorporated local governing bodies have responsibility."
*In Canada, municipalities are local governments established through provincial and territorial legislation, usually within general municipal statutes. Types of municipalities within Canada include cities, district municipalities, municipal districts, municipalities, parishes, rural municipalities,