Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/U.S. municipality notes

There are many articles on municipalities in the United States that use vocabulary terms with special meanings. This page defines those terms, the usage of which may vary from state to state.

Note: The articles linked have not yet been coordinated with the text of this page. This page is under construction.

County

The county is the basic unit of local government in the United States. There are no areas in the U.S. that are not within a county, though there are plenty of areas not within a city or town. In a few states, counties or their effective equivalents have different names, such as Parish in Louisiana or borough in Alaska.

In all of Rhode Island, all of Connecticut, and some counties of Massachusetts, counties no longer provide government services but exist only as administrative subdivisions and for Census purposes.

Due to the fairly straightforward nature of the concept of a county, there should not be much ambiguity or difficulty on Wikipedia in referring to counties in the U.S., and a detailed policy or convention in this area should not be necessary.

However, beware of cases where a county and city share a common name, such as County of Los Angeles and City of Los Angeles. These are separate governmental entities at different levels of government; their duties and powers are different and separate as well, and they do not have coterminous boundaries.

Additionally, be aware of cases where a city and county have become a consolidated city-county, such as the City and County of San Francisco, where the consolidated government takes on the duties of both the city and county, and the boundaries of both usually become coterminous.

An even more complicated example would be the City and County of New York, which makes up the Borough of Manhattan, but is only one of the five counties underlying New York City (which effectively have no government but remain as administrative and statistical divisions). New York County is coterminous with Manhattan, which is one of the five Boroughs of New York City that make up the functional government of NYC. These types of situations must be handled on a specific basis—see the section on "Consolidated City-County" below.

Consolidated city-county

Main article: Consolidated city-county

City

Main article: City

Independent city

Main article: Independent city (United States)

Town

Main article: Town (explains towns, hamlets, and villages)

In many states, a "town" is an incorporated municipality. (Confirmed for: MA, NH, NJ, PA, RI, TN, UT, VA, NJ, possibly ME.)
In some states, there are no incorporated towns. (Confirmed for MI.)
New England towns (i.e., towns in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont) have attributes of both incorporated municipalities and minor civil divisions.
In some states, like New York and Wisconsin, towns may contain other incorporated municipalities, such as villages, but not cities.
In Wisconsin, civil townships are officially known as "towns".
In California, under California law, there is no effective governmental difference between an incorporated municipality calling itself a "City" or a "Town." It is merely a naming choice and makes no legal difference in the municipal corporation's powers or duties. However, an important distinction in California is whether a municipality is a charter city or a general law city, which greatly influences a city's powers.

See Local government in California#Cities and towns

In Florida, an incorporated municipality may be called a "city", "town" or "village", but there are no differences in legal status or powers, and no restrictions on size (some "villages" have a larger population than some "cities"). See Administrative divisions of Florida#Municipalities.

Township

Main articles: Civil township and Township (United States)

Borough

Main article: Borough (United States)

Village

Main article: Village

Hamlet

Main article: Hamlet (place)

Neighborhood

Main article: Neighborhood

Census-designated place (CDP)

A Census-designated place (CDP) is a term and statistical unit established by the U.S. Census Bureau. The CDP exists solely for the Census Bureau's purposes in reporting statistical data. The Census Bureau, and the entire Federal government for that matter, have no authority to actually establish local place names or the boundaries of the places in question. Those powers lie with the state or local governments (except in the case of Washington, D.C.). The United States Board on Geographic Names does not, as its title may suggest, have these powers either—its purpose is only to establish uniform place name usage within the Federal government's activities.

Currently, there is widespread usage of the term "Census-Designated Place" across Wikipedia on articles dealing with places in the U.S. that are not part of incorporated cities. Please see this archived talk page for a discussion on this subject. When consensus is established, the policy or convention will be listed here.

Currently, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#United States seems to provide the only guidance in this area, but the text seems to refer to the CDP as a "form of government," which it clearly is not. In this vein, usage of "unincorporated (area/town/village/place)" would seem to be more appropriate.

Below is a good summary of the definition and history of the term "CDP."

A census-designated place (CDP) is defined by the United States Census Bureau as "a statistical entity defined for each decennial census according to Census Bureau guidelines, comprising a densely settled concentration of population..."^[1] that is not part of a city or a village^[2] "...but is locally identified by a name."^[1] CDPs may cross town and county borders.^[3] CDPs are defined collaboratively by state and local officials and the Census Bureau.^[1] They are defined for each census, and it is commonplace to change boundaries and define new CDPs for each census.^[4]

The Census Bureau formerly referred to CDPs as "unincorporated places" from 1950 through the 1970 decennial censuses.^[5]^[6] The term CDP was first used for the 1980 census, and minimum population criteria for CDPs were dropped with the 2000 Census.^[5]