South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

, a metropolitan municipality or Category A municipality is a

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

which executes all the functions of local government for a

city 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 de ...

or conurbation. This is by contrast to areas which are primarily rural, where the local government is divided into district municipalities and local municipalities. The

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princip ...

, section 155.1.a, defines "Category A" municipalities. In the Municipal Structures Act it is laid out that this type of local government is to be used for conurbations, "centre of economic activity", areas "for which integrated development planning is desirable", and areas with "strong interdependent social and economic linkages". The metropolitan municipality is similar to the consolidated city-county in the US, although a South African metropolitan municipality is created by notice of the provincial government, not by agreement between district and local municipalities.

History

Metropolitan municipalities were brought about duri