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The term township, in Canada, is generally the district or area associated with a town. The specific use of the term to describe political subdivisions has varied by country, usually to describe a local rural or semirural government within the country itself.
In Eastern Canada, a township is one form of the subdivision of a county. In Quebec, the term is canton in French.
The historic colony of Nova Scotia (present-day Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island) used the term township as a subdivision of counties and as a means of attracting settlers to the colony. In Prince Edward Island, the colonial survey of 1764 established 67 townships, known as lots, and 3 royalties, which were grouped into parishes and hence into counties; the townships were geographically and politically the same. In New Brunswick, parishes have taken over as the present-day subdivision of counties, and present-day Nova Scotia uses districts as appropriate.
In Ontario, there are both geographic townships and township municipalities. Geographic townships are the original historical administrative subdivisions surveyed and established primarily in the 1800s. They are used primarily for geographic purposes, such as land surveying, natural resource exploration and tracking of phenomena such as forest fires or tornados, but are not political entities. Township municipalities, also called "political townships", are areas that have been incorporated with municipal governments, and are a lower-tier municipality (if located in a county or regional municipality, i.e. in Southern Ontario) or single-tier municipality (if located in a district, i.e. in Northern Ontario). [1]
A township municipality may consist of a portion of one or more geographic townships united as a single entity with a single municipal administration. Often rural counties are subdivided into townships. In some places, usually if the township is in a county rather than in a regional municipality, the head of a political township may be called a "reeve", not a mayor. However, the distinction is changing as many rural townships are replacing the title with "mayor" to reduce confusion. A few townships keep both titles and designate "mayor" as the head of the municipal council and use "reeve" to denote the representative to the upper tier (usually county) council.[ citation needed ]
The term "geographic township" is also used in reference to former political townships that were abolished or superseded as part of municipal government restructuring.[ citation needed ]
In Quebec, townships are called cantons in French and can also be political and geographic, similar to Ontario although the geographic use is not used much or at all. They were introduced after the British Conquest, primarily as a surveying unit. They were designated and cover most of the unattributed territory in Eastern Quebec and what is now known as the Eastern Townships and later used in surveying the Outaouais and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean regions.
Townships often served as the territorial basis for new municipalities, but township municipalities are no different from other types such as parish or village municipalities.
In the Prairie Provinces and parts of British Columbia, a township is a division of the Dominion Land Survey. Townships are (mostly) 6-by-6-mile (9.7 by 9.7 km) squares, about 36 square miles (93 km2) in area. The townships are not political units (although political boundaries often follow township boundaries) but exist only to define parcels of land relatively simply. Townships are divided into 36 equal 1-by-1-mile (1.6 by 1.6 km) square parcels, known as "sections." In Saskatchewan, a political unit called a rural municipality in general is 3 townships by 3 townships in size, or 18 miles squared, about 324 square miles (840 km2).
Three municipalities in British Columbia, Langley, Esquimalt and Spallumcheen, have "township" in their official names but legally hold the status of district municipalities.
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French comté denoting a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count (earl) or a viscount. Literal equivalents in other languages, derived from the equivalent of "count", are now seldom used officially, including comté, contea, contado, comtat, condado, Grafschaft, graafschap, and zhupa in Slavic languages; terms equivalent to 'commune' or 'community' are now often instead used.
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in five countries, Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equivalent term, shire town, is used in the U.S. state of Vermont and in several other English-speaking jurisdictions. County towns serve a similar function in Ireland, Jamaica, and the United Kingdom.
A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries.
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well as the means by which a mayor is elected or otherwise mandated. Depending on the system chosen, a mayor may be the chief executive officer of the municipal government, may simply chair a multi-member governing body with little or no independent power, or may play a solely ceremonial role. A mayor's duties and responsibilities may be to appoint and oversee municipal managers and employees, provide basic governmental services to constituents, and execute the laws and ordinances passed by a municipal governing body. Options for selection of a mayor include direct election by the public, or selection by an elected governing council or board.
Statistics Canada, formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in Ottawa.
A civil township is a widely used unit of local government in the United States that is subordinate to a county, most often in the northern and midwestern parts of the country. The term town is used in New England, New York, as well as Wisconsin to refer to the equivalent of the civil township in these states; Minnesota uses "town" officially but often uses it and "township" interchangeably. Specific responsibilities and the degree of autonomy vary in each state. Civil townships are distinct from survey townships, but in states that have both, the boundaries often coincide and may completely geographically subdivide a county. The U.S. Census Bureau classifies civil townships as minor civil divisions. Currently, there are 20 states with civil townships.
A township in some states of the United States is a small geographic area.
A regional municipality is a type of Canadian municipal government similar to and at the same municipal government level as a county, although the specific structure and servicing responsibilities may vary from place to place. Regional municipalities were formed in highly populated areas where it was considered more efficient to provide certain services, such as water, emergency services, and waste management over an area encompassing more than one local municipality. For this reason, regions may be involved in providing services to residents and businesses.
The census geographic units of Canada are the census subdivisions defined and used by Canada's federal government statistics bureau Statistics Canada to conduct the country's quinquennial census. These areas exist solely for the purposes of statistical analysis and presentation; they have no government of their own. They exist on four levels: the top-level (first-level) divisions are Canada's provinces and territories; these are divided into second-level census divisions, which in turn are divided into third-level census subdivisions and fourth-level dissemination areas.
A town council, city council or municipal council is a form of local government for small municipalities.
Local government in Canada can be defined as all elected local authorities which are legally empowered to make decisions on behalf of its electors, excluding the federal government, provincial and territorial governments, and First Nations, Métis and Inuit governments. This can include municipalities, school boards, health authorities, and so on.
A merger, consolidation or amalgamation, in a political or administrative sense, is the combination of two or more political or administrative entities, such as municipalities, counties, districts, etc., into a single entity. This term is used when the process occurs within a sovereign entity.
This is a list of elections in Canada in 2015. Included are provincial, municipal and federal elections, by-elections on any level, referendums and party leadership races at any level.
The Canadian province of Nova Scotia is divided into 49 municipalities, of which there are three types: regional (4), town (25), and county or district municipality (20).