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.

The notion of municipality includes townships but is not restricted to them. 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, Swedish kommun and Norwegian/Danish kommune). The term derives from the medieval commune. 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.

The largest municipalities can be found in Canada, Greenland and Australia.

Municipalities as lower-level entities

• In Albania, a municipality is either part of a city or a province such as The Municipality of Tirana which, in 2005, earned the international price of "most efficient municipality in Europe."
• In Algeria, a municipality (commune) is part of a daïra, which is part of a wilaya; there are 1,541 communes in Algeria.
• In Argentina, a municipality (municipalidad) is a city, town, or township, which is part of a province. The provinces organize the municipalities in their territories according to their own municipal regime.
• In Australia, municipalities are subdivisions of a state or territory. (See Local Government Areas in Australia).
• In Austria, a municipality (Gemeinde) is part of a district (Bezirk), which is in turn part of a state (Bundesland).
• In Belgium, a municipality (gemeente/commune) is either part of a province (provincie/province) or of the Brussels-Capital Region
• 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 ( ) is part of a state (estado), and the smallest political-administrative division. The Federative Republic of Brazil is defined as a Tripartite Federal Republic - that is, the federal government, the states and municipalities are in a co-federation with each other, so there is not a proper federal hierarchy in Brazil. A city (cidade'') is defined in Brazilian law as the urban seat of a municipality, and a municipality always has the same name as the corresponding city. Brazilian law establishes no difference between cities and towns; all it takes for an urban settlement to be called a "city" is to be the seat of a municipality, and some have a very small population. Except for the Federal District (the area of the national capital city, Brasília), which has special status and no municipalities, all land in Brazil, even the remotest wilderness areas, is in the territory of some municipality, and hence technically under the jurisdiction of a "city."
• In Canada, a municipality is a city, town, township, district, 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, 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 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 part of a department (departamento). It also subdivided into Corregimientos and Veredas.
• In Croatia, a municipality (općina) is part of a county (županija)
• In the Czech Republic, a municipality (obec) is part of a kraj (kraj)
• 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 Estonia, a municipality (omavalitsus) is the smallest division.
• In Finland, a municipality (kunta / kommun) co-operates with municipalities nearby in a sub-region (seutukunta / region) and region (maakunta / landskap); a region belongs to a province (lääni / län) of the state. A municipality can freely call itself a "city" (kaupunki / stad).
• In France, a municipality (commune) is part of a department (département) which is part of a region (région)
• 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 demoi or koinotetes (demoi with little population) which is then part of a prefecture (nomos) and then a larger region known as a periphery. Municipalities are third-level administrative divisions and their heads (mayors in demoi, presidents in koinotetes) are appointed via popular vote held every four years.
• In Haiti, a municipality (commune) is part of an arrondissement, which is part of a department (département).
• In Hungary, a municipality (települési önkormányzat) is part of a county (megye).
• In India, a municipality is often referred to town. It is neither village nor big city. Usually, a municipality would have 100,000 or more people, but if it exceeds one million, it becomes a corporation.
• 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 Kenya, a municipality is one of four types of local authorities. Nearly 50 major towns are given the municipality status.
• In Latvia, a rural municipality (sing.:novads, plur.:novadi) is part of a district (sing.:rajons, plur.:rajoni). A rural municipality normally consists of amalgated parishes (sing.:pagasts, plur.:pagasti). An urban municipality is called rajons.
• 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 district (apskritis) and is subdivided into elderates (seniūnija).
• In Luxembourg, communes are the lowest divisions.
• In Mexico, a municipality (municipio) is a subdivision of a state (estado) and a borough (delegación) is a subdivision of the Federal District (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).