Local government in New Hampshire consists of county, school district, and municipal governments.
There are 10 counties in the state of New Hampshire responsible for local sheriff services, nursing homes, and prisons. A county is governed by a board of county commissioners. Similar to the rest of New England, county government in New Hampshire is very weak and have relatively few responsibilities compared to states in other regions. Most local government functions are performed at the town and city level.
New Hampshire contains 234 incorporated towns and cities. Thirteen are cities and 221 are towns. Towns and cities are treated identically under state law. The primary difference is that cities are former towns who dropped the town meeting form of government in favor of a city form through special act of the New Hampshire General Court. Since 1979, however, any town or city can change its form of government by creation of a new charter and voter approval of the new municipal charter. Cities and towns are nominally divisions of the state. However, as in the rest of New England, the laws governing their authority are very broadly construed.
Collectively, these 234 municipalities cover the vast majority of, but not all of, the state's territory. There are some unincorporated areas in the sparsely populated northern region of the state. Most of the unincorporated areas are in Coos County, the state's northernmost county. Carroll and Grafton counties also contain small amounts of unincorporated territory. This territory includes unincorporated townships, some of which are known as grants, purchases and locations. Thornton Gore is part of the town of Thornton. The remaining seven counties in the state are entirely incorporated (Grafton County was also fully incorporated at one time, but lost that status when the town of Livermore disincorporated). Fewer than 250 of the state's residents live in unincorporated areas.
Coös County or Coos County is a county in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. As of the 2020 census, the population was 31,268, making it the least-populated county in the state. The county seat is Lancaster.
An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. There are many unincorporated communities and areas in the United States and Canada.
An incorporated town is a town that is a municipal corporation.
Most U.S. states and territories have at least two tiers of local government: counties and municipalities. Louisiana uses the term parish and Alaska uses the term borough for what the U.S. Census Bureau terms county equivalents in those states. Civil townships or towns are used as subdivisions of a county in 20 states, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.
The town is the basic unit of local government and local division of state authority in the six New England states. Most other U.S. states lack a direct counterpart to the New England town. New England towns overlay the entire area of a state, similar to civil townships in other states where they exist, but they are fully functioning municipal corporations, possessing powers similar to cities and counties in other states. New Jersey's system of equally powerful townships, boroughs, towns, and cities is the system which is most similar to that of New England. New England towns are often governed by a town meeting, an assembly of eligible town residents. The great majority of municipal corporations in New England are based on the town model; there, statutory forms based on the concept of a compact populated place are uncommon, though elsewhere in the U.S. they are prevalent. County government in New England states is typically weak at best, and in some states nonexistent. Connecticut, for example, has no county governments, nor does Rhode Island. Both of those states retain counties only as geographic subdivisions with no governmental authority, while Massachusetts has abolished eight of fourteen county governments so far. Counties serve mostly as dividing lines for the states' judicial systems and some other state services in the southern New England states, while providing varying services in the more sparsely populated three northern New England states.
In the United States, the meaning of village varies by geographic area and legal jurisdiction. In formal usage, a "village" is a type of administrative division at the local government level. Since the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government from legislating on local government, the states are free to have political subdivisions called "villages" or not to and to define the word in many ways. Typically, a village is a type of municipality, although it can also be a special district or an unincorporated area. It may or may not be recognized for governmental purposes.
A Vermont municipality is a particular type of New England municipality. It is the basic unit of local government.
