In present-day Spain a mancomunidad (English: municipal association [note 1] ) is an association of municipalities voluntarily established by some municipalities with the aim of carrying out joint projects or providing common services. [1] [2]
A mancomunidad is one of the local entities [3] defined for the purpose of local government, to which those municipalities may voluntarily delegate some of their functions and powers. There were 1,023 mancommunidades in 2011. [4]
In general, mancomunidades are aimed at carrying out projects or providing common services. [1] [5]
A mancomunidad has legal personality, and can exist either for a particular period to achieve a concrete goal or can exist indefinitely.[ citation needed ]
A mancomunidad is similar to a comarca, with the difference that comarca has somewhat different meanings in the various autonomous communities of Spain and mancomunidad is defined identically throughout the country. The municipalities in a single mancomunidad need not be coterminous (though they usually are). They are required to set a clear goal, create management bodies distinct from those of the individual municipalities, and provide the mancomunidad with its own budget.
There are a number of natural or historical regions that, despite the strong identity and common goals of their inhabitants, are divided by provincial or even ancient kingdom boundaries. Examples of such regions are Tierra de Campos, Manchuela and Ilercavonia. Such regions or comarcas have often not been able to achieve the necessary legal recognition for their administrative development within the existing provincial or autonomous frameworks. Therefore, their municipalities have resorted to organizing themselves into a mancomunidad. [6]
Other groups of municipalities that do not face the problem of borders cutting across their natural region or comarca may form a mancomunidad for economic reasons, to improve local services or in order alleviate some form of historical administrative neglect owing to distance from and lack of communication with current administrative centers. [7]
The term mancomunidad and its cognates are also used to translate the English word "commonwealth". [8]
The comarques of Catalonia, often referred to in English as counties, are an administrative division of Catalonia. Each comarca comprises a number of municipalities, roughly equivalent to a county in the United States. Currently, Catalonia is divided into 42 comarques and Aran, considered a "unique territorial entity" and not a comarca.
Extremadura is a landlocked autonomous community of Spain. Its capital city is Mérida, and its largest city is Badajoz. Located in the central-western part of the Iberian Peninsula, it is crossed from east to west by the Tagus and Guadiana rivers. The autonomous community is formed by the two largest provinces of Spain: Cáceres and Badajoz. Extremadura is bordered by Portugal to the west and by the autonomous communities of Castile and León (north), Castilla–La Mancha (east), and Andalusia (south).
A province in Spain is a territorial division defined as a collection of municipalities. The current provinces of Spain correspond by and large to the provinces created under the purview of the 1833 territorial re-organization of Spain, with a similar predecessor from 1822 and an earlier precedent in the 1810 Napoleonic division of Spain into 84 prefectures. There are many other groupings of municipalities that comprise the local government of Spain.
In Spain, a comarca is either a traditional territorial division without any formal basis, or a group of municipalities, legally defined by an autonomous community for the purpose of providing common local government services. In English, a comarca is equivalent to a district, county, area or zone.
The municipality is one of the two fundamental territorial divisions in Spain, the other being the provinces.
Campo de Gibraltar is a comarca (county) in the province of Cádiz, Spain, in the southwestern part of the autonomous community of Andalusia, the southernmost part of mainland Europe. It comprises the municipalities of Algeciras, La Línea de la Concepción, San Roque, Los Barrios, Castellar de la Frontera, Jimena de la Frontera, San Martín del Tesorillo and Tarifa.
La Janda is a comarca in the province of Cádiz, southern Spain. It was established in 2003 by the Government of Andalusia.
Talayuela is a municipality located in the province of Cáceres, Extremadura, (Spain). Talayuela's name comes from "atalayuela", related to the Spanish word "Atalaya", which means "watch tower".
Trasierra/Tierras de Granadilla, traditionally known as Tierras de Granadilla, is a comarca at the northern end of province of Cáceres in Extremadura, one of Spain's seventeen Autonomous Communities.
The Region of León, Leonese region or Leonese Country is a historic territory defined by the 1833 Spanish administrative organisation. The Leonese region encompassed the provinces of Salamanca, Zamora, and León, now part of the modern Spanish autonomous community of Castile and León. As is the case with other historical regions, and continuing with centuries of history, the inhabitants of the Leonese region are still called Leonese. Even today, according with official autonomous government, the historical territorial adjective is used in addition with the modern annexed territory, the rest of Old Castile, being "Castilians and Leonese".
In Andalusia, comarcas have no defined administrative powers; many municipalities have gathered together to form mancomunidades in order to provide basic services, but those do not always coincide with the traditional comarcas. The current (2007) Statute of Autonomy of Andalusia, unlike its 1981 predecessor, allows for the establishment and regulation of official comarcas under its Title III, Article 97, which defines the significance of comarcas and sets the basis for future legislation in this area.
The Mancomunidad de Municipios Marquesado del Zenete or Mancomunidad del Marquesado del Zenete is a voluntary grouping (mancomunidad) of municipalities, located in the province of Granada, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. They take their name from the Marquisate of Cenete, the former seigneury in this area, which in turn takes its name from the Arabic sened, meaning the slope that constitutes one side of a mountain range. That refers to the north slope of the Sierra Nevada, where the municipalities are located.
The Taula del Sénia or Mancomunitat de la Taula del Sénia is a commonwealth or free association of municipalities made up of 22 towns, totalling up to 100,000 people, of some of the comarcas that make up the center of the historical region of Ilercavonia, Spain. The origin of the name lies in the fact that all municipal terms involved are located within 15 km of the Sénia River, perceived as the centre of the region in its upper course.
Tierra del Pan is a comarca located in the center of the province of Zamora, western Spain. It belongs to the Autonomous Community of Castile and León. The city of Zamora, capital of the province, is included in this comarca.
Tierra de Campos is a large historical and natural region or greater comarca that straddles the provinces of León, Zamora, Valladolid and Palencia, in Castile and León, Spain. It is a vast, desolate plain with practically no relief, except for some wide undulations of the terrain.
Government in Spain is divided into three spheres or levels: the State itself, the regions or autonomous communities and local entities. These levels are not hierarchical, meaning there is no supremacy or primacy of one over the other, but rather they are separately defined by their jurisdictional powers.
A provincial council is the administrator and governing body of a province of Spain. It is one of the entities that make up local government in Spain. The council is made up of a president, vice presidents, an executive committee and the plenary assembly of deputies.
The Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) is an association of local governments in Spain for the purpose of representing the interests of local government to other government authorities. In June 2023, there were 7,324 members of a potential 12,060.
Local government in Spain refers to the government and administration of what the Constitution calls "local entities", which are primarily municipalities, but also groups of municipalities including provinces, metropolitan areas, comarcas and mancomunidades and sub-municipal groups known as Minor local entities.
The Commonwealth of Municipalities of the Vall d'Albaida is a mancomunidad of the comarca of the Vall d'Albaida, Spain.