A township (or municipality) is a settlement which has the status and powers of a unit of local government. Specific use of the term to describe political subdivisions has varied by country.

Uses of the term

Township (or municipality) is generally associated with an urban area. However there are many exceptions to this rule, especially in the U.S. In the Scottish Highlands the term describes a very small agricultural community, usually describing a local rural or semi-rural government within a county. Fact: date=September 2008

"Municipality" refers to a town or "an area governed like a town". Small (in terms of population) rural subdivisions with limited administrative responsibilities are better referred to as "parishes" or "communities", and this (rather than "municipality") is the preferred translation of the expressions commune, gemeende, Gemeinte, comuna, obec, etc referred to below.

In most countries, a municipality is the smallest administrative subdivision to have its own democratically elected representative leadership.Fact: date=May 2007

The largest municipalities can be found in Canada and Greenland.Fact: date=May 2007 Possibly the largest municipality in the world is Baie-James in northern Quebec, Canada, with a land area of 297,330 km² (114,800 sq. miles), which is larger than the United Kingdom.

• In Australia, municipalities are subdivisions of a state or territory. (See Local Government Areas in Australia). In Australia and New Zealand the designation of "township" traditionally refers to a small town: a place that in Britain might qualify as a village or a hamlet.
• In Belgium, a municipality (commune in French gemeente in Dutch or Gemeinde in German) is the lowest level of administrative division. It is a part of a province.
• In Benin, there are 77 communes, grouped into twelve departments.
• In Bolivia, a municipality (municipio) is part of a province, which is part of a departamento.
• In Bosnia and Herzegovina, a municipality (općina or opština) is
• part of a canton (kanton)
• a subdivision (grouped in regions)
• In Brazil, a municipality (município) is part of a state (estado). However, the Federative Republic of Brazil is defined as a Tripartide Federal Republic. In other words, there isn't a federal hierarchy in Brazil.
• In Canada, two kinds of township occur in common use. See: Township (Canada)
• In eastern Canada a township is one form of the subdivision of a county. In Canadian French, this is a canton. Townships are referred to as "lots" in Prince Edward Island and merely form census subdivisions and are not administrative units. In Canada, a municipality is a city, town, township, county, or regional municipality which has been incorporated by statute by the legislatures of the provinces and territories. It is also a specific designation for certain municipalities in Quebec (see types of municipalities in Quebec), Nova Scotia and Ontario. Certain areas of Saskatchewan and Manitoba are designated as rural municipalities, while equivalent areas in Alberta are designated as municipal districts and some in British Columbia are designated as district municipalities.
• In western Canada townships exist only for the purpose of land division by the Dominion Land Survey and do not form administrative units. These townships are six miles by six miles (36 square miles, or roughly 93.24 km²).
• In Chile, a municipality (municipalidad) is a legal entity which administers one or more communes (comuna) which are the third-level division of the country. The first division are regions which a next divided into provinces (provincia). These provinces are next divided into comunas which are assigned to a municipality for administration. In most cases the municipality and the comuna have the same name, but the constitution permits a single municipality to be responsible for more than one commune.
• In Colombia, a municipality (municipio) is a decentralized entity that group to form a department (departamento). Municipalities are formed by Corregimientos and Veredas. see: Municipalities of Colombia
• In Croatia, a municipality (općina) is part of a county (županija)
• In the Czech Republic, a municipality (obec) is part of a district (okres)
• In Denmark, a municipality (kommune) is part of a region. Counties (amter) were abandoned in Denmark on January 1, 2007.
• In the Dominican Republic a municipality (municipio) is a subdivision of a province (see municipalities of the Dominican Republic).
• In England the term township referred to a subdivision used to administer a large parish. This use became obsolete a long time ago. Recently, some councils, normally in the north of England, have revived the term (see Township (England)).
• In Estonia, a municipality (omavalitsus) is the smallest division.
• In Finland, a municipality (kunta) co-operates with municipalities nearby in a sub-region (seutukunta) and region (maakunta); a region belongs to a province (lääni) of the state. A municipality can freely call itself a "city" (kaupunki).
• In France, a municipality (commune) is the lowest level of administrative division. A commune can be either a village, a small town, or a large city. The word municipalité is usually used to designate the administration running a "commune".
• In Germany, a municipality (Gemeinde) is part of a district (Kreis). Larger entities of the same level are called towns (Stadt). In less populated regions, municipalities are often put together into collective municipalities (Verbandsgemeinde)
• In Greece, a municipality is either an urban demoi or rural koinotetes which is then part of a prefecture (nomos) and then a larger region known as a periphery.
• In Hungary, a municipality (települési önkormányzat) is part of a county (megye).
• In Italy, a comune is part of a province (provincia) which is part of a region (regione). The term "municipality" is reserved for subdivisions of larger comuni (in particular, the comune of Rome).
• In Japan, a municipality is the sphere of government within the prefectures, the sub-division of the state.
• In Jersey, a municipality refers to the honorary officials elected to run each of the 12 Parishes into which it is subdivided.
• In Kenya, a municipality is one of four types of local authorities. Nearly 50 major towns are given the municipality status.
• In Lebanon, a municipality is part of a district (Arabic: Qadaa) which is part of a Governorate (Region or Province, Arabic: Mouhafazah).
• In Lithuania, a municipality (savivaldybė) is a part of a county (apskritis) and is subdivided into elderates (seniūnija).
• In Mexico, a municipality (municipio) is a subdivision of a state (estado) and a borough (delegación) is a subdivision of a city; the most known boroughs are those in Mexico City (see municipalities of Mexico and Boroughs of the Mexican Federal District).
• In the Netherlands, a municipality (gemeente) is part of a province (provincie).
• Every part of mainland New Zealand is part of either a "city" (mostly urban) or a "district" (mostly rural).