In South Africa, wards are geopolitical subdivisions of

municipalities 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 go ...

used for electoral purposes. Each metropolitan and local municipality is delimited by the

Municipal Demarcation Board The Municipal Demarcation Board is an independent authority responsible for delimiting the boundaries of South African districts and municipalities and the boundaries of the electoral wards within those municipalities. General The Board was en ...

into half as many wards as there are seats on the municipal council (rounding up if there are an odd number of seats). Each ward then elects one councillor directly, and the remaining councillors are elected from

party list An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can ...

s so that the overall party representation is proportional to the proportion of votes received by each party. After the 2021 municipal elections, there are 4,468 wards in South Africa.

References

External links

Municipal Demarcation Board
Subdivisions of South Africa {{SouthAfrica-election-stub