"Municipal" redirects here. For other uses of the term, see Municipal (disambiguation)
A municipality is an administrative entity composed of a clearly defined territory and its population and commonly denotes a city, town, or village, or a small grouping of them. A municipality is typically governed by a mayor and a city council or municipal council.
Municipalities are not necessarily the same as townships. A municipality is a general-purpose district, as opposed to a special-purpose district.
In most countries, a municipality is the smallest administrative subdivision to have its own democratically elected representative leadership.
In some countries, municipalities are referred to as "communes" (for example, French commune, Italian comune or Swedish kommun). The term derives from the medieval commune. Note that the word has absolutely no implication of communism; rather, the word "communism" derives from the word "commune" because of its striving towards a commune-like society.
The largest municipalities can be found in Canada and Greenland. Most likely the largest municipality is Avernasuaq in Greenland, which is larger than the whole United Kingdom.
In some countries, especially in the Middle East, the term "municipality" is also used to refer to the municipal administrative building known elsewhere as the town hall or city hall.
